Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Dell's Chairman Faces Campus Critics of Company's Recycling Record in a Webcast By SCOTT CARLSON Printer friendly E-mail article Subscribe Order reprints HEADLINES   Lawmakers to propose interest-rate change that could make student loans more costly Bush applauds community colleges in speech, but provides few details on his proposals Presidential pay climbed 3.1% this year at community colleges, survey finds Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of rulings against prayer at Virginia Military Institute Dell's chairman faces campus critics of company's recycling record in a Webcast UCLA uses new software to block online piracy, and the movie industry applauds Commencement speakers are announced by 10 colleges It's not often that college activists get to corner a captain of industry and drill him about his company's environmental policies. But on Monday, Michael Dell, the chairman of the computer company Dell Inc., invited dozens of students and university administrators to tune in to a Webcast in which he outlined his company's efforts to create computers that are easy and safe to recycle. A handful of participants got to fire questions directly at the computer mogul. Jack DeBell, director of recycling services at the University of Colorado at Boulder, complained that Dell charges the university about $50 to recycle a computer, but charges an individual only about $5. He asked whether Dell would lower the institutional price if computer-recycling companies and other manufacturers lowered theirs. "Sure, we love to compete, so there's no question about that," Mr. Dell said. But, he added, Dell's recycling program offers various security guarantees to institutions that it doesn't offer to individuals. Listeners lobbed persistent but polite questions for about 20 minutes, and Mr. Dell restated his company's policies and philosophies. "The questions could have been answered with more specificity," said David Wood, executive director of GrassRoots Recycling Network, an environmental group that helped organize the Webcast. "Within the constraints of time we got about as much detail as could have been expected. The challenge now is to continue the dialog." Over the past year, Dell Inc. has been the primary target of activists who are concerned about electronic waste. A single computer can contain several pounds of toxic substances, like lead, mercury, cadmium, PCB's, and brominated flame retardants. Environmental activists have complained that too many computers are ending up either in landfills, where the toxins can leach out, or overseas, where the computers are disassembled in ways that are unsafe for those doing the work. Dell has also relied on prison labor to recycle computers, which the activist groups have found objectionable. Activists have focused on Dell because it is the most popular computer company on many campuses. They accused the company of dragging its feet on moves to clean up computers and set up recycling programs. In December, more than 150 Public Interest Research Groups and student environmental organizations from colleges across the country placed a full-page ad in The Austin Chronicle, a weekly newspaper in the Texas capital. The ad urged Dell to set up a free recycling program for customers, to recycle the computers through responsible domestic companies, and to phase out the use of toxic substances in computer manufacturing. Dell's headquarters are in Round Rock, Tex., just north of Austin. In April, Mr. Dell responded to the groups in an open letter, saying that computer-waste disposal "has Dell's full attention and we're working to address this challenge." He argued that Dell was already offering inexpensive recycling programs and was working on making cleaner computers. He said that Dell had established a policy to prohibit sending computers overseas for recycling, but he made no mention of the use of prison labor. The activists were encouraged by the letter. "Dell has evolved from where it was a year ago," said Mr. Wood, whose group sponsored the newspaper ad. "They have been able to provide fairly specific detail of where their plans are." He added that this spring Dell and Hewlett-Packard have supported the passage of computer-recycling laws in a handful of states. Mr. Wood sat near Mr. Dell during the event, which was Webcast from Austin. Two students from the University of Wisconsin at Madison -- Clare Cragan and Rachel Ann Seltzer -- were also in the room. Before he took questions from students, Mr. Dell spent more than half an hour outlining, point by point, progress his company has made in environmental issues. Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, a group that has worked with students at the University of Texas at Austin and other colleges, issued a challenge to Mr. Dell: that he support legislation that would force computer manufacturers to take back old computers and recycle them. "I think it depends what the bill is," Mr. Dell replied, adding that he would prefer to see federal legislation or, even better, market-driven recycling programs. "We were quite disappointed to hear that they were not going to join us on state legislation," Ms. Schneider said after the Webcast. However, she was encouraged that Mr. Dell was willing to sit down with students and talk about environmental issues. Kara Reeve, an activist with Clean Water Action, a group that has organized computer-recycling campaigns at colleges in the Northeast, watched the Webcast with a group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She said she was heartened that Mr. Dell took time to talk with activists, and added that his company is making progress on environmental issues. Ms. Reeve's group has been especially active in criticizing Dell Inc. "He has been feeling the heat," she said. Background article from The Chronicle: Old Computers Never Die -- They Just Cost Colleges Money in New Ways (2/14/2003)