Bonney Lake Man Guilty Of Sending E-Waste To China

Zirkle, 55, and his co-conspirator Craig Lorch, 61, of Seattle, admitted to accepting millions of dollars from multiple agencies and organizations that falsely believed the pair were using environmentally-safe methods to recycle electronics — when in fact the men were actually shipping the electronics off to China, where they were dismantled in such a way that not only risked damage to the environment but also serious health consequences for the workers there.

"These defendants held their company out as one of the good guys, signing agreements promising they would keep hazardous materials out of the environment. But even as they made that pledge, they secretly shipped millions of flat screen monitors to Hong Kong where disposal practices endangered workers and the environment," U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes said in a statement last week. "Their actions were driven by greed and a total disregard for the promises they had made. As a result customers unknowingly ended up harming the environment rather than protecting it as they intended."

Over a period of eight years, beginning in 2008, the company exported at least 8.3 million pounds of mercury-laden TVs and other electronics, according to EPA Special Agent Jeanne M. Proctor.

The company's website claimed specifically that its "commitment to environmental responsibility is at the core of everything Total Reclaim does," and that it promised "not to 'allow the export of hazardous E-waste we handle to be exported' to developing countries, where workers are known to disassemble electronics, which contain dangerous materials such as mercury, without safety precautions," officials for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Western Washington said.

One of the ways in which Total Reclaim reportedly obtained the electronics was through the E-Cycle Washington program, which takes electronics dropped off at places like Goodwill and pays companies like Total Reclaim to recycle the products in accordance with standards set by the state's Department of Ecology — making it likely that many of the people who contributed to the environmental disaster in Hong Kong even knew what they'd inadvertently done.

Zirkle and Lorch were caught by the Basel Action Network (BAN) in 2014. After they were notified of BAN's findings, the pair reportedly then falsified hundreds of shipping logs in an attempt to cover their tracks.

Along with their prospective sentences, the men have also agreed to pay $1.1 million in restitution.

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The full charging document is available below:

Total Reclaim Federal Charges by Neal McNamara on Scribd

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