National eDay organiser Earl Mardle yesterday confirmed electronic equipment collected from Dunedin and other southern centres during last month's eDay was among shipments stalled by a Ministry of Economic Development investigation.
Nearly 1000 tonnes of electronics collected from around the country on September 12 had been transferred to Auckland and was being stored in 60 containers, he said.
That included 71 tonnes of used equipment gathered at events in Dunedin, Alexandra, Wanaka and Queenstown.
The shipments had been delayed followed an allegation the containers of eDay recyclables had been mixed with hazardous waste, revealed by The New Zealand Herald yesterday.
The shipments were to be exported by contractor CRTNZ, and the allegations centred on claims the shipments had been incorrectly labelled, or electronic waste deliberately inserted into the shipments, the newspaper reported.
Mr Mardle, the Auckland-based chairman of the 2020 Communications Trust that organised eDay, told the Otago Daily Times CRTNZ was the contractor involved, but said few other details of the allegations or investigation were available.
The mixing of reusable computers and hazardous waste in the same container was "certainly potentially part of" the investigation, he said.
Computer equipment, such as monitors, had to pass a 10-point test before they could be exported to any part of the world as reusable equipment, he said.
If they failed the test, they were deemed to be hazardous waste and could only be shipped to an approved recycling facility in South Korea, he said.
An unusable monitor, for example, contained lead that needed to be appropriately handled.
Mr Mardle said he did not know how long the ministry's investigation would take, but an agreement had been reached whereby individual containers could be released for export after approval by independent inspection firm SGS New Zealand.
The inspections would cost the trust about $20,000, he said.
CRTNZ had been responsible for dealing with all material collected at eDay events, including its export, Mr Mardle said.
Ministry staff could not be reached for comment yesterday, and the director of CRTNZ, who would not give his name, declined to comment when contacted.
Mr Mardle said CRTNZ staff had insisted there was no foundation to the allegations, and "we accept that until it's demonstrated otherwise".
The investigation and delays were "potentially very damaging" for the eDay event, he said.
"We have a very tight budget - we don't have any spare budget for these types of things.
"We could find ourselves unable to continue with eDay," he said.
