ABC news’ Brian Hartman has reported what many have been wishfully waiting to hear for months: the Obamas will soon plant an organic vegetable garden on the White House South grounds.

Following a 60 Minutes interview with Chez Panisse chef, renowned slow foodist and activist for improved national eating habits in the US, Alice Waters, on Sunday March 15th, wherein she called with continued clarion for an organic garden at the White House, First lady Michelle Obama talked of her plans for the garden in an interview for Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine that will feature in its April issue.

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In an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes, his first since the election, President-elect Barack Obama talked about the economy, the housing market and how to create a sustainable auto industry. He said that the $700 billion bailout plan has done little to improve the economy so far, but he credited the Bush administration Sunday for working to address the global financial crisis.

“There’s no doubt that we have not been able yet to reset the confidence in the financial markets and in the consumer markets and among businesses that allow the economy to move forward in a strong way,” Obama said. “And my job as president is going to be to make sure that we restore that confidence. We shouldn’t worry about the deficit next year or even the year after. … The most important thing is that we avoid a deepening recession.”

The president-elect also said that not enough has been done to address bank foreclosures and distressed homeowners.

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I often have email exchanges with ecopreneurs, non-profits, NGOs and various business folks that don’t necessarily end up as a blog post. Sometimes I start in one direction and end up in another. That’s what happened here when I received an email from Rob Wallace at Keep America Beautiful.

Rob had one of those ironic moments. He sent out an email and press release to us asking:

How can recycling wireless phones support the new administration’s energy policy?  Our recycling partner, ReCellular, is a reuse-oriented recycler of cellular equipment, and we’re confident that their structure and operations support zero-waste wireless recycling.

Great email pitch. Bookmark this page for next time you send out a press release. However, this pitch landed on my screen the day after I wrote this post on 60 Minutes and Executive Recycling. I immediately asked Rob if he’d be interested in commenting on the whole issue of dumping of e-waste in China instead. And he was and here is what he had to say:

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Oddly enough, I just write a piece for this blog a few days ago, Building A Greenwash Crisis Plan, looks like Executive Recycling could use one. The 60 minutes report last night, The Electronic Wasteland, uh…certainly gave them cause to need one!

This is a bit of a chilling tale for any eco entrepreneur! Executive Recycling, a small Colorado based, e-waste recycling center, was founded by Brandon Richter in 2004 with high hopes to provide a green solution to a growing problem. As he put it:

You think that you are doing good sending your computers to a recycling company.. but that is not exactly the case..  “Your e-waste is recycled properly, right here in the U.S. - not simply dumped on somebody else.”

I’m going to give Richter the benefit of the doubt here. When the dreaded call from 60 minutes came (You all know the joke don’t’ you? “What are the 5 most dreaded words a CEO can hear? “This is 60 Minutes calling.”) Richter gladly agreed to help them and gave them access to his records.

Things obviously didn’t turn out so well, since 60 Minutes found that containers of used monitors left his facility and were shipped overseas, ending up contributing to the virtual destruction of a town in China that dismantles all kinds of e-waste. A snip from the broadcast transcript…

And Brandon Richter, CEO of Executive Recycling, was still warning of the dangers of shipping waste to China. “I just heard actually a child actually died over there breaking this material down, just getting all these toxins,” he said.

Then Pelley told him we’d tracked his container to Hong Kong.

“This is a photograph from your yard, the Executive Recycling yard,” Pelley told Richter, showing him a photo we’d taken of a shipping container in his yard. “We followed this container to Hong Kong.”

“Okay,” Richter replied.

“And I wonder why that would be?” Pelley asked.

“Hmm. I have no clue,” Richter said.

“The Hong Kong customs people opened the container…and found it full of CRT screens which, as you probably know, is illegal to export to Hong Kong,” Pelley said.

“Yeah, yep,” Richter replied. “I don’t know if that container was filled with glass. I doubt it was. We don’t fill glass, CRT glass in those containers.”

“This container was in your yard, filled with CRT screens, and exported to Hong Kong, which probably wouldn’t be legal,” Pelley said.

“No, absolutely not. Yeah,” Richter said.

“Can you explain that?” Pelley asked.

“Yeah, it’s not - it was not filled in our facility,” Richt

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