Glass update....sticky this haha
After closing the doors to its 11093 Kenwood Road facility in Cincinnati last year, 2TRG, a former R2- and e-Stewards-certified processor, abandoned "tons upon tons of [CRT] glass" in Gaylord boxes, Global Environmental Services (GES) president Kenny Gravitt told E-Scrap News. Apparently unable to pay for downstream processing, 2TRG left at least 1,500 tons of the glass at the facility, Gravitt said.
Another processor who also toured the facility estimated there were upwards of 3,000 tons of intact and crushed CRT glass on-site.
While declining to confirm either estimate, the Ohio EPA did verify the existence of the glass at the former 2TRG facility. "Ohio EPA staff has visited the site," Dina Pierce, the state agency's media coordinator, told E-Scrap News. "Staff saw a large number of Gaylord boxes onsite containing various computer parts (not just CRT glass)."
State rules, according to Pierce and the Ohio EPA, hold both "the owner and operator responsible for appropriate management of CRT glass." With 2TRG no longer in business, the "property owner's representative told our inspectors he intends to take bids for a contract to remove the stockpiled computer materials, including the CRT glass," Pierce said.
Three processors, including GES, told E-Scrap News they had each entered a bid to take over the glass. One processor estimated a cleanup cost of roughly $600,000, while another suggested costs could easily exceed $1 million.
Attempts to contact the property owner and property manager were unsuccessful. Repeated attempts to reach former 2TRG executives, including CFO and founder Carol Weinstein, were unsuccessful.
Pierce told E-Scrap News the Ohio EPA "will monitor and follow up as needed to make sure any hazardous wastes at the site are properly managed and removed."
A number of 2TRG's assets were acquired in December of 2013 by the publicly traded firm E-Waste Systems (EWSI). An EWSI executive told E-Scrap News the acquisition excluded "anything that would have been a liability" and sources indicated 2TRG's CRT glass did not change hands in the deal.
