Recycling and "The World For Sale: The Most Powerful People You've Never Heard Of"

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 raw materials BUSINESS - the virgin raw materials mined and cut and pumped out of the ground - 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 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

 

UK Parliament Testimony to "Free Hurricane Joe Benson"

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 

E-Waste Blamed for Dolphin Brain Pollution?

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

Vishwam Sankaran

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pollution-electronic-waste-brain-dolphins-b2928621.html

The genius of the Dolphins

The Genius of all the dolphins is still, clearly, a dolphin.

And so should we remember that we, of all our relative insights contrasting with one another, are still just humans.

The genius does not necessarily impart or impact upon other species.  But one person could do just the opposite. An anti-genius extinction maker of thoughtfulness, just as a non-genius buffalo-extinction export rifleman does (Centennial, James Michener)

That is my MAGA nightmare. Makers of unthoughtfulness, Un-makers of thoughtfulness.

So reader, that is your assignment today.

Can we pause our influence on humans to affect other life forms' existence? Oh, that's a long way of saying environmentalist.

Cloning in a Hiring Freeze: A Deeeeep State Confession

Cloning in a Hiring Freeze

Thirty years ago, one of the staffers I hired at Massachusetts DEP, John Crisley, left for another job. On his way out he told me, “You’ll always be Mr. Recycling to me.”

That wasn’t a brag. Anyone at DEP back then knows that nickname came with baggage.

John was a political hire. And here’s the question that became part of my so-called “legend”: how did I grow my program from six staff to eighteen during a statewide hiring freeze?

Here’s how.

When I first became Recycling Program Manager, my predecessors and supervisors gave me whispered advice:

• “Don’t interview a Vietnam veteran — if you do, you’re saying they’re qualified, and you might be forced to hire them.”

• “Don’t interview a legislator’s nominee.”

• “Don’t interview a minority candidate.”

This advice came from Democrats — good people, progressive people — who believed in creating on-ramps for disadvantaged categories. But they also understood the unintended consequences of the system they’d built. They were warning me about the traps.

Today it feels risky to admit “own goals” from your own team. The other team will weaponize it.

But dialectic, baby. We get stronger by acknowledging our weaknesses — and our wakenesses — instead of pretending we never had any.