New "Data" published in NYT

(I was kidding about the word "data") From the NY Times

Shipping e-waste to the Third World 

Barbara Kyle, the TakeBack Coalition's executive director, estimates that much of this is sent to developing countries. Asian countries like China and Vietnam as well as African countries like Ghana and Nigeria receive the bulk of the waste, Kyle said.
Developing nations like these have few or no regulations, Kyle said, and as a result, a whole industry based on crude, unsafe methods to extract the minerals exists. Many contain toxic materials that harm surrounding environments and populations, Kyle said. 

"If they can pull the metals out by bashing and burning, that's what they do," Kyle said. "These are people working for a few dollars a day and don't get health safety."

Barbara "estimates" that much is sent to developing countries.


She testified as an expert to the Vermont Legislature, House Committee on Natural Resources.

She probably thinks this returned Peace Corps volunteer, who has volunteered and worked in the non-profit and public sector for most of his life, is some kind of a jerk.  She probably finds the pictures of factories of the Geeks of Color to be less convincing than BAN's 12 year old pictures of kids standing on small loads of scrap.  She certainly means well.  And she is certainly not an expert on exports of used electronics.


If she were, she might be acutely concerned that the name of her organization - takebackcoalition.org, is calling for the return of used computer monitors to the same factories which assembled them.  And we'd be in perfect zen.  The name "third world", applied to places like Singapore and Penang, Malaysia, is a bizarre, biased, ignorant and some would maintain racist label.   If Barbara owns a display device, it was made by my friends, and if she wants my friends to take it back, they are willing.  She just needs to stop calling them names like "third world".



"Bashing and burning, that's what they do".  This is racist and insulting.  I'm sure it wasn't intended to be so.  That's why I call the watchdogs "the Accidental Racist".


I guess the response is that the overseas "geeks of color" are smart enough to do something besides beat computers with rocks.  They have the intelligence for original manufacture, warranty repair, takeback, refurbishment, and reuse... according to Take Back Coalition they just don't have the means to do the right thing with the residuals, which are so toxic that they erase the value all the way back to mining in rain forests.  Whereas in the west, we can make complex computing systems out of legos (no kidding, check link).


Guess what.  They can recycle as well as manufacture.  Does Manufacturer take-back win?  Or does export lose?


Two decades after "New Jack City", we have president Obama.  The reuse techs of color are going to make the Accidental Racist Watchdogs into Archie Bunkers faster than you can delete a NYT article.

 I couldn't help it it's all your fault