Do exports of electronics need to be handled with care? Yes. Should electronics recyclers be certified? Absolutely. Professional recycling companies are proud to have the bar raised, and for standards for reuse and recycling to be level. With that said, should the Green-Thompson Bill banning "ewaste exports" be passed? Here are the facts.
1. Are 80% of USA's "EWASTE" exported to non-OECD Nations?
Non-OECD nations represent 83% of the world population. While there has never been a source for the "80%" export statistic, it is logical that 83% of the buyers in the world could represent 80% of the market for USA goods.
2. Are most USA electronics scrapped in primitive recycling yards, creating pollution?
No. The largest importers by volume of items like computer monitors and desktops are the contract manufacturing factories which originally made them. Most of these are located in, or owned by, Taiwan based companies such as Foxconn, Proview, Wistron, and BenQ. They take back items under warranty for repair, but also take back non-warranty items if they can be refurbished for reuse. The other big overseas markets are for raw materials - plastic, copper, aluminum, zinc, lead, steel, etc. Those are the same markets for everyone, and whether the used electronics are shredded first, or not, does not change the recycling outcome.
3. Do most of the European and USA electronics shipped to Africa wind up burned in primitive conditions?
No. In depth research provides concrete evidence that 85% of the exports to Ghana (the site filmed by BAN.org and Greenpeace) are reused.
Only 30% of the electronics imported to Ghana are brand new. African buyers station inspectors to carefully screen items they are buying in the country of export in order to make sure shipping costs (80% of the cost of the item) are not spent on junk.
The percentage of product not reused is similar to the percentage of store returns at Wal-Mart in the USA.
4. Are e-Waste reuse and recycling operations a significant source of pollution?
No. By far most of the pollution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America comes from the mining of raw materials to make brand new electronics. In comparison, the percentage of toxics released by repair and elective upgrades is practically not even measurable.
5. Will a ban on e-Waste exports help poor people?
No. The proposed bans on e-waste exports will harm poor people. The emerging democracies in Africa and the Middle East have made connections via internet. The cost of new display devices (monitors) is more than a month's pay, out of reach for most Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians, etc. The alternatives to recycling jobs are mining for metals like tin, tantalum, and tungsten in rain forests, and mining for lead in Kabwe. No reputable professional has ever said reuse or recycling is worse than mining... even those who would ban recycling concede the mining in Africa and China is far worse.
6. Do a significant number of USA recyclers mix "toxic along for the ride" with exports?
According to interviews with importers and technicians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, bans on export in California, Oregon and Washington resulted in a "sellers market" for used electronics, and quality has decreased whenever good people refuse to trade or ban trade with geeks in developing markets. While the quality of loads went down, the cost of shipping (especially to South America and Africa) generally makes it impossible to ship more than 30% junk.
7. Where do the electronics shown in photos at dumps like Guiyu and Agbogbloshie come from?
By all accounts, most of the scrap shown in primitive recycling yards in China comes from China, and most of the scrap in the dumps in Ghana has been used productively for years in Ghana. Photos by organizations like Greenpeace clearly show (in their own footage) nice black televisions taken out of sea containers, and show very old white computers, in small numbers, at the dump. Greenpeace commits fraud if they say that the sea containers are unloaded at Abbogbloshie, BAN commits fraud if they say that sea containers sent to China are unloaded at Guiyu.
8. Is modern shredding technology superior to hand disassembly?
Hand dis-assembly is certainly superior to shredding by machine. Hand disassembly recovers products like batteries, rare earth magnets, chips, reuseable parts, and can separate high grade copper from low grade. Burning wires is bad but is actually rare, most of the wires shown in Africa have been sorted for reuse, and most of the wires in China are graded in modern chopping and washing systems. Shredding technology is only used in nations who cannot find labor to hand disassemble. Hand disassembly creates more value and more jobs and more affordable computers.
9. What is the alternative to legislation banning "e-Waste" exports?
Fair Trade Recycling agreements require exporters to clearly label and identify electronics shipped (not simply to load junk into a container), and to have the buyer agree on a price which demonstrates the Cost of Goods Sold cannot support simple scrap dumping. The exporters must allow importers to hold back a portion of payment (e.g. 20%) to use to cover the cost of properly recycling bad units and parts by hand.
10. Do reused and refurbished goods produce bad jobs and pollution?
The only source which makes this claim, BAN.org, receives nearly 100% of its funding from Original Equipment Manufacturers who are opposed to secondary markets (like an Auto Manufacturer contributing to a campaign against used car sales), or high capital shredding companies which have trouble competing with reuse and hand-dis-assembly operations. Under the E-Steward label, companies which agree not to deal with refurbishers overseas pay thousands of dollars and a percent of their gross revenues to the non-profits which use pictures of African and Asian children to market against reuse and hand disassembly.
Not a penny of the donations goes to the children in the photos. Their images are used to market a campaign to take their parents jobs away.
11. Does International Law ban the export of computers for repair, refurbishing, and reuse?
No. International law (Basel Convention) explicitly says these activities are
not waste treatment. Laws have been
proposed to outlaw the reuse export practices, but have
not been passed.
This is not a renunciation of efforts to improve recycling. Certification and improvement of reuse and recycling exports is good. But most African, Latino, and Asian buyers do not resemble the exaggerated pictures distributed by some non-profits. Please look into
Fair Trade Recycling, and Responsible Recyclers practices. It makes a lot more sense than export bans and subsidies to destroy working computers.
