Not posting that I am certain about the meanings of "green list" (Annex IX B) and red list (A) is all sortec out, but hey I acknowledge that Jim Puckett is still a player.
There is extreme confusion now about Prior Informed Consent (PIC) of green-listed engineered plastic. Some companies that pay e-stewards a general allowance money are calling ABS and HiPS as mixed plastics, other buyers are paying top dollar for greenlisted engineer-grade plastics, especially during Hormuz oil spikes.
PRESS RELEASE Middlebury, VT April 1 2026
For twenty-five years we’ve been told that technicians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are victims when they buy used electronics, ship them home, repair them, and sell them.
This phenomenon has been described as “waste dumping.”
Apparently the act of paying for something yourself is strong evidence that you are being exploited.
Today we announce a shocking discovery.
Using the same methodology, we have uncovered a far larger global dumping scandal.
Europeans are being dumped in Florida.
Tourist Exploitation At Disney World...!
This Freakonomics Episode, "The Most Powerful People You've Never Heard of" interviews authors Javier Blas and Jack Farchy about their book "The World For Sale" with of the same subtitle.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-most-powerful-people-youve-never-heard-of-update/
This really tells the history of how the raw materials BUSINESS - the virgin raw materials mined and cut and pumped out of the ground - runs. How they are bought and sold, and WHO they have been bought and sold by since the 1930s. Mark Rich, original creator of Glencore, features, as does Trafigura which this blog covered 15 years ago as an actual case of Basel Convention dumping of industrial waste on Cote D'Ivoire in 2006 - by a virgin raw material mining and extraction company.
They don't use poverty porn. They have interviews of retired commodities traders who passed bags of cash (and thumbdrives of bitcoin) to trade copper, lead, gold, oil, bauxite and other non-recycled virgin raw materials for decades. Recyclers, this is our competition.
No need for me to recap it. But if you are in the recycling business and don't know about Wagner Group, mining nationalization, bribes (historically deductible as a business expense in Switzerland), and how the Curse of Natural Resources works, then you are missing out on the main reason to keep doing what you are doing.
Just beneath the surface of the global economy, there is a hidden layer of dealmakers for whom war, chaos, and sanctions can be a great business opportunity. In this updated episode from 2025, journalists Javier Blas and Jack Farchy help us shine a light on the shadowy realm of commodity traders. You can find the transcript and show notes for this episode on our website here: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-... FOLLOW FREAKONOMICS RADIO: YouTube: https://freak.ws/3yIl6dl Apple Podcasts: https://freak.ws/3yAvQh0 Spotify: https://freak.ws/3TsdCmV
Ran across this chestnut - our testimony to the UK Parliament in 2019.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/103715/pdf/
Written evidence submitted by Fair Trade Recycling
The Independent in the UK goes way back in the annals of waste-blaming. The Independent was one of the first to herald the arrest of Joseph "Hurricane" Benson, accepting that the African born technician was somehow making a financial gain by exporting used televisions for dastardly intentions - anything but reuse and repair. I tried corresponding with The Independent's reporter for years. Even when Benson was released, and Interpol's Project Eden closed after multiple researchers found Agbogbloshie's waste to be domestic city of Accra devices, not recent imports, the Independent never followed up.
So today's headline seems uncannily responsive to my last blog about the intelligence of dolphins. Weird.
E-waste found contaminating dolphin brains: ‘This is a wake-up call’ Toxic chemicals in dolphins and porpoises seem to originate mostly from television and computer screens
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pollution-electronic-waste-brain-dolphins-b2928621.html
