{"id":12959,"date":"2014-01-15T18:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T23:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=12959"},"modified":"2021-04-23T17:08:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T21:08:10","slug":"entrepreneur-cleaning-ewaste-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/entrepreneur-cleaning-ewaste-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning Up Our E-Waste Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Entrepreneur Traci Phillips of Natural Evolution is in the business of preserving Mother Earth.<\/h1>\n

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated for publication in <\/em>The New York Times since it first appeared on this site in October 2013.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Discarded consumer electronics are clogging landfills, fast-becoming a worldwide environmental calamity. One woman in Tulsa, Okla., is trying to make a dent.<\/p>\n

Traci Phillips, 42, started a recycling company, Natural Evolution<\/a>, more than a decade ago, after realizing the hazards associated with electronic waste. Dead cell phones, dilapidated computers, broken video-game consoles and other thrown-away gadgets are laden with toxins like lead, mercury and arsenic. The United States alone produces three million tons of e-waste a year, a figure that\u2019s expected to rise as tech companies churn out new products and consumers snap them up.<\/p>\n

Phillips is one of only 66 businesses in the country to be recognized by\u00a0e-Stewards<\/a>, a certification program for recyclers that adhere to stringent environmentally and socially responsible practices. Ms. Phillips\u2019 company stands out both because it is one of only five e-Stewards-certified companies to be led by a woman and because it is the only certified company led by a person of Native American descent.\u00a0[pullquote]\u201cI get to get up every day and protect our Mother Earth,\u201d — Traci Phillips[\/pullquote]<\/span><\/p>\n

Part Osage and Cherokee, Ms. Phillips worked a variety of jobs, from selling copiers to managing technology projects, before starting Natural Evolution in 2001 in Tulsa, Okla. “My tribe, many years ago, believed we had a responsibility and we were actually stewards of our surroundings and our earth,” she says. “It feels like I am fulfilling that.”<\/p>\n

But collecting e-waste is not a pretty business. \u201cMargins are thin, the work is dirty and the value of material is constantly changing,\u201d she says. Inside her 30,000-square-foot facility, workers \u201cde-manufacture\u201d the scores of electronics that come in by the pallet from clients, including public schools, local hospitals and government agencies. Her employees strip away valuable commodities \u2014 steel, aluminum, brass and copper \u2014 and minute amounts of precious metals like gold, silver and iridium. Phillips\u2019 company charges corporate clients a small fee for dropping off used CRT monitors and televisions, but makes the majority of its money on the back end, selling scrap metal to big recyclers like ECS Refining<\/span>\u00a0in Santa Clara, Calif.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phillips\u2019 13-employee facility takes everything from used printers and keyboards to the occasional coffeemaker and microwave. An average pile of e-waste, Phillips says, might contain about 60 percent metal, while the rest is material that contains toxic components or plastic. For every ton of e-waste, her company can collect about 45 to 58 cents a pound, totalling about $1 million a year in revenue.<\/p>\n

Phillips pledges that none of the e-waste that comes her way will wind up in a landfill or be shipped to a developing nation. \u201cSince inception, we have been diligent about where our material goes,\u201d she says. After a worker collects the valuable metal from say, a used computer, leftover glass is sent to a lead smelter in Texas. Plastic goes to Tulsa\u2019s waste-to-energy facility, where it is converted into fuel.<\/p>\n

[pullquote]\u201cI\u2019ve never been in a business where you never know what is coming in the door, and you never really know what it\u2019s going to be worth when it goes out the door,\u201d — Traci Phillips[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

E-Stewards, which is based in Seattle and run by the nonprofit\u00a0Basel Action Network<\/a>, certified Phillips\u2019 company in 2010. There are an estimated 3,600 recyclers in the United States, and some of the unscrupulous ones ship materials to developing countries in Asia and Africa, where workers are paid sweatshop wages to smash and burn electronics, says Mandy Knudtson, business manager with e-Stewards. \u00a0\u201cIt ends up poisoning people and the environment,\u201d she says.\u00a0Others simply reclaim the more valuable assets from the waste and then send the rest to landfills or incinerators.<\/p>\n

Phillips says Natural Evolution suffered a setback early on, during a period of high growth, when she contracted with another company to help with the volume. She paid to have 23 loads of material recycled but then learned that the partner didn\u2019t share her standards. To prevent the waste from going to a landfill, she took all of the material back. \u201cIt was the right decision environmentally,\u201d she says, although it took years for her company to recover financially.<\/p>\n

The company also struggled after the 2008 financial crisis, when the price of commodities dropped. Even today, the uncertainty of metal prices remains a challenge, Phillips says. \u201cI\u2019ve never been in a business where you never know what is coming in the door, and you never really know what it\u2019s going to be worth when it goes out the door,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s like managing quicksand.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, she says, Natural Evolution has been doing better and making a profit. And she hopes to open a second facility with a partner, the Pueblo of Isleta tribe of Albuquerque, N.M., in the second quarter of 2014. About 60 of her nearly 400 clients are tribes. \u201cOur working relationships are built of mutual respect,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a good match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillips estimates that Natural Evolution recycles about three million pounds a year, making \u201ca really small dent\u201d in the global e-waste problem. She does not make as much money as she did working for someone else, she says, but she gets \u201cto get up every day and protect our Mother Earth. For that I am really grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\r\n\t\tRead Full Transcript<\/i><\/span><\/a>\r\n\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t

Traci Phillips \u2013 Founder, Natural Evolution<\/p>\n

Traci Phillips (TP): There we were, fall of 2001, didn\u2019t have any great job opportunities, had a brand new baby, and wanted to stay in Tulsa. So we decided to give this new thing called electronics recycling a try.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tTraci Phillips \u2013 Owner \u2013 Natural Evolution, Inc \u2013 Oklahoma \u2013 USA<\/p>\n

TP:\tNatural Evolution is an electronics recycling company that recycles responsibly. We do not landfill and we haven\u2019t since the beginning.<\/p>\n

I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My dad was actually Native American and Irish. My maiden name is Finnegan, so Irish and Indian.<\/p>\n

My parents got divorced when I was 11. It was my mom and my sister and I. I think the three of us were trying to survive. I worked almost the entire time that I was in college. I\u2019ve pretty much done whatever it was necessary to feed myself and keep a roof over my head.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tTraci graduated college in 1994 with a business degree.
\nShe found a job selling photocopiers on commission.<\/p>\n

TP:\tAt the time, selling copiers you made really good money, actually. But I decided that I really didn\u2019t like what I did every day and what I did didn\u2019t really matter. And so I quit my job.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tTraci was hired by a technology company and worked her way up to a management position.<\/p>\n

TP: We were streaming video and music on the Internet before anybody did that. You know, I was working probably 70 hours a week, travelling a lot.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tIn 1999 Traci married Chris Philips.
\nTwo years later she gave birth to their daughter, Sable.<\/p>\n

TP:\tAfter I delivered our daughter my boss called and said, \u201cCongratulations and, oh, by the way, [CHUCKLES] our department is, is shutting down and you\u2019re being laid off.\u201d I had given a lot to the company. That was a real blow.<\/p>\n

At the same time my husband and I had been researching the problems of recycling of electronics.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tWith a loan from her grandmother and a newborn baby, Traci and Chris launched Natural Evolution, Inc.<\/p>\n

TP:\tSo my husband and I started the company together although I own 100% of the company. He decided that he was better at making money for other people and I was better at being the boss.
\nWe make money on the back end. We sort the steel, the aluminum, the brass, the copper, some of the exotic material \u2013 tantalum, rhodium, lithium\u2026 we do gold recovery. So we don\u2019t make money until we sell the material.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tTraci made commitments to her customers to recycle responsibly and never to landfill their e-waste.<\/p>\n

SOT: How many pallets do you have to pick up?<\/p>\n

TP:\tIt\u2019s extremely important that we\u2019re recovering our resources, so resources being the metal. If it goes into a landfill, it\u2019s just wasted. It\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tAs Natural Evolution grew, Traci contracted with another company to help handle the volume. Then she learned it wasn\u2019t operating to her standards.<\/p>\n

TP: We ended up taking in about 23 loads of material that we had already paid for, to have recycled properly and so in order to keep it from going into the landfill we took it back. Even though it cost us a lot of money and we weren\u2019t in a position, really to be able to afford that.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tIt took several years for the company to recover.<\/p>\n

TP:\tWe are making a profit now.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tNatural Evolution recycles three million pounds of e-waste a year.
\nTheir clients include Tulsa public schools, local hospitals, and government agencies.<\/p>\n

CARD:\tThe company has 13 employees and continues to grow.<\/p>\n

TP:\tI am very focused on creating good jobs\u2026 wherever possible. I think it\u2019s important that people get up every day and do something that they believe in and are proud to do.<\/p>\n

Credits:<\/p>\n

Producers \u2013 Victoria Wang and Sue Williams
\nDirector \u2013 Sue Williams
\nEditor \u2013 Merril Stern
\nDirector of New Media and Outreach \u2013 Karin Kamp and Colleen DeBaise
\nDirector of Photography \u2013 Sam Shinn
\nAssociate Producer \u2013 Nusha Balyan
\nAssistant Editor \u2013 Matt Strickland
\nSocial Media Coordinator \u2013 Christina Wu and Heather Mangal
\nMusic \u2013 Killer Tracks<\/p>\n

Photos Courtesy of:
\nThe Journal Record
\nBert Van Dijk on Flickr
\nJustin Ritchie on Flickr
\n123rf
\nClipart Of LLC
\nFotolia<\/p>\n<\/p>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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