Zen and the Art of Recycling Apartheid

WEALTHY GIRL BUYS NEW CELL PHONE.

POOR WOMAN CANNOT AFFORD NEW CELL PHONE.

Free Market:  "You two should talk..."

What kinds of reverse marketing would it take to convince the wealthy girl that it's less ethical, or more risky, to sell the phone to the woman, directly or through her family?

What kind of marketing would it take to convince the girl to pay a tax so that the old cell phone is shredded into little bitty pieces of plastic and metal?

What kind of marketing would it take to get a dictator to pass a law, customs seizure, or import ban to keep the poor woman from obtaining the means to tweet and call and socially organize with a cell phone?

Shredding has its place.  But the shredder makes money on the girl's tax, not by adding value to the working phone.  The new cell phone company hopes to sell an additional cell phone to the poor woman.

This is my industry.   The free market is not perfect, there are cases of "junk along for the ride", cases of no infrastructure for recycling after the product is finished;  ultimately, the old woman may throw it away (even if it was purchased brand new). There are things that need to be monitored, and fixed, to ensure fair trade recycling.  Nevertheless, segregating these women is worse.  It is time to end "Recycling Apartheid".

Third party research has now documented a massive exaggeration:  1) of the number of bad units in the trade, 2) of the short useful life of display devices, and 3) of the toxic harm from reuse and recycling.  Who is funding this mad men marketing campaign?

Follow the money trail. Who benefits by convincing a nation with declining growth to shred added value, and to convince emerging nations to stop imports of used, value added equipment?

Planned obsolescence in hindsight.  New product makers, shredding companies, and dictators.  "Green Racism", even if well intentioned, even accidental, is a term we should take steps to avoid.  READ YESTERDAY'S E-SCRAP NEWS for the latest "accidental racism" news from Europol.  Africans buying used goods in Europe and sending it to their geek cousins at home, are "criminals"... (Below)


EUROPOL LABELS GEEKS OF COLOR "CRIMINALS" WITHOUT A SINGLE DOCUMENTED SORT OF A SINGLE LOAD.  "EU CRIMINALS CORNER E-SCRAP MARKET" IS THE HEADLINE, THE FACTS?  THE ARTICLE DESCRIBES AFRICANS BASED IN THE EU WHO ARE PACKING THE CONTAINERS FOR ASSOCIATES IN AFRICA.

Since the only comprehensive study to date demonstrated only 15% unuseable residue (in exports to Ghana),  there's nothing to support the use of the word "criminal" in the tantalizing headline, "EU Criminals Corner the E-Scrap Market".  The story merely adds fuel to the "accidentally racist" diatribe against the "primitive" geeks of color.  The buyers of these goods are setting Africa up with internet cafes, television and cell phone towers.   The ones they can afford are the ones which rich girls in Europe haven't shredded yet.

Read the article closely.  It may be based on fact, but that would be an anomaly.  There is no suggestion that the 15% residue is wrong.  Apparently, 85% proper repair and recycling, all legal in Basel Convention Annex IX, is a crime, calling for a high tech lynching?  RECYCLING WHILE BLACK.

The marketing campaign behind this is subtle, but simple.

1) Exaggerate the Risk or Harm
2) Prohibit the Activity

This has indeed been a recipe, throughout history, for creating criminal rackets, from Al Capone to Mexican marijuana kingpins.  It would not surprise me if Europol did, indeed, discover expat criminals in the used electronics market. But the correct response is fair trade and legalization, not making yet another tired and unsupported accusation.    Interracial marriage was once criminal, too.  Here in Vermont, we have relationships with African geeks which fit the description in EScrap News.  Ghana technicians living in the USA, communicating by phone and internet with their brothers and cousin geeks in Accra, choosing and cherry picking loads for export...  It's old news, it has been studied, it is 85% legitimate.

Shredding has its place, but it is not a panacea.  Like a proper burial, hospitals need mortuaries.  But a mortuary which runs the hospital, and defines people leaving the hospital as a "criminal act", is heinous.

Good is value.  Value is Good.  Like "quality" in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (also about repair and reuse), appreciating value is both quality and quantity.  Shredding is for things which cease to have added value.  When the market is trying hard to buy the cell phones, it's an indicator that they have added value.  If the Wealthy Girl is convinced to shred the object with added value, she will be less wealthy.   And the old woman will not magically afford a new cell phone - she will be less wealthy, too.

Maybe they'll convince the girl that the old "e-waste" cell phone causes cancer in the poor woman.  I learned about "cognitive dissonance" in my MBA Marketing Program, and "cognitive risk" can be used in a marketing campaign as well.

In the same way that cognitive dissonance marketing leads to confusion at point of sale, "toxic" and "cancer" and poster children can be used to market a cognitive bias against the sale or donation.  "Why risk being accused of trading with a black person" was 80% of the enforcement of apartheid, in South Africa and in the USA south.  That's why ending Jim Crow and Apartheid went so surprisingly smoothly - most of the people were just "going along" with it not to make waves.   Once trade is unfettered, good tends to add more value than bad, and free and fair trade, between geeks and blacks and wealthy cell phone girls, is better than a rule by fear of headline.

So do the normal and natural thing - let the girl trade the cell phone to the woman for bananas, coffee, or mangoes.  Don't let social trade become entangled in guilty, onus, red tape, and controversy.  The result of that has been a poor woman with more toxics - because mining virgin material is more toxic than reuse and recycling, and she has fewer unshredded quality cell phone sellers to choose from.  If she's smart, she'll buy from her cousin in Italy.

Displays, processors, sound... The information age.  Turned into little tiny pieces which no longer display, no longer process, and no longer carry words and voices.