Myths.. I was just approached yesterday about permission to re-print my Greenwala Editorial, Top Ten Common Myths About E-Waste. My testimony to the Patch reporter about state of the art recycling in China was countered by BAN representative Don Summers thus:
See film of the people we are talking about below.
The trick here is to get an apology to the technicians who made the dang monitor on Basel Action Network's desk. The trick is to get the champions of the "Take-Back" solution to understand that is exactly what was happening in China... the factories that made monitors were taking them back.
The monitors shown in Hong Kong did NOT go to Guiyu, ok? CBS 60 MINUTES was either wrong, or lied to, or lied themselves when they said they "followed the trail" from the port of Hong Kong to Guiyu. BAN knows this. When I call them out on it, they say I'm lying through my teeth?
I have written correspondence with Jim Puckett from BAN PROVING that they did not think I was lying. The question is, did Jim Puckett mis-inform his consultant, Donald Summers? Or did Donald know and was himself trying to myth-away the contract manufacturing industry?
I have stood in these factories, I have brought E-Stewards and university staff to these factories. I don't want to be in a pissing match over my own environmentalist credentials. I really hate being seen as a pissing match guy. I put a lot of time in with Jim and Sarah 5-10 years ago, trying to help them fine-tune their protest to focus on the lowest common denominators. But 80% of people is not my definition of LCD (that's Lowest Common Denominator, not Liquid Crystal Display).
Nigerian Joseph Benson went to JAIL based on BAN's completely fake, completely fabricated, completely false, completely disproven, completely fictitious and arbitrary statistic about "80% of E-Waste Exports". This isn't about getting people to believe one of us or the other is "lying through our teeth", it's a number which can be researched. A lot of American companies made a lot of money charging higher recycling fees, selling planned obsolescence, selling shredders, etc., based on the negative ad campaign against Asian and African high-tech recycling. A lot of us are complicit in this.
I don't want an apology for "said something mean". I want BAN to come clean on their McCarthy campaign against the technicians overseas. Jim stated concerns and conditions for E-Stewards to use these factories. I disagree with BAN on those legal requirements, and in China even Jim's requirements are not accepted (Communist party non-tariff barrier on reuse when it competes with new manufacturing owned by CCP). That is a policy debate, and debate is good. I apologized in April to BAN for words I said, and though I didn't hear back, I want to move forward.
It's just bloody wrong to show pictures of children and dumps, and to portray the SKD business as "dumping on poor people". It is sending the signal to honest film-makers and reporters to go exoticize and "other-ize" technicians and repair people. It mis-informs the green movement, in a way that could discredit important other environmental issues, like climate change, deforestation, and ocean extinctions.
What to do with the lawsuit in my lap? BAN will distance themselves from their consultant, but now that he's said it on record, it gives credibility to the character witnesses who have told me that Jim P. himself said the same things about me to them, in private. This breaks open the he-said she-said.
We should demand that BAN disavow their fake statistics, or their credibility as a source of statistics. They may be making up numbers about export out of thin air. Their numbers mathematically disprove themselves, prima facia, because they apply the same 80% to numerators and denominators.
BAN makes money. They make money off of a story and they are trying to keep the story going. And real people who I've broken bread with are devastated.
This is wrong, people.
Summers then criticized Ingenthron and Cade for promoting the "myth that there are all these wonderful high-tech facilities in China,' adding more harsh comments about Ingenthron's character.In other words, while apologies should be accepted, beer with Obama and all, there remains a central dispute of fact about high tech recycling outside of the USA. The defamation and character assassination is not against Robin, it's not against Brian, it's not against Willie. It is against the geeks overseas, whom BAN seems to want to pretend to be mythical beasts. They describe Africa, China, and Latin America as a kind of Heart of Darkness in recycling, they describe Guiyu's tech district as "E-waste Chernobyl".
See film of the people we are talking about below.
 |
| From Big Secret Monitor Factories - Legitimate Reuse vs. "E-waste" |
The trick here is to get an apology to the technicians who made the dang monitor on Basel Action Network's desk. The trick is to get the champions of the "Take-Back" solution to understand that is exactly what was happening in China... the factories that made monitors were taking them back.
The monitors shown in Hong Kong did NOT go to Guiyu, ok? CBS 60 MINUTES was either wrong, or lied to, or lied themselves when they said they "followed the trail" from the port of Hong Kong to Guiyu. BAN knows this. When I call them out on it, they say I'm lying through my teeth?
I have written correspondence with Jim Puckett from BAN PROVING that they did not think I was lying. The question is, did Jim Puckett mis-inform his consultant, Donald Summers? Or did Donald know and was himself trying to myth-away the contract manufacturing industry?
I have stood in these factories, I have brought E-Stewards and university staff to these factories. I don't want to be in a pissing match over my own environmentalist credentials. I really hate being seen as a pissing match guy. I put a lot of time in with Jim and Sarah 5-10 years ago, trying to help them fine-tune their protest to focus on the lowest common denominators. But 80% of people is not my definition of LCD (that's Lowest Common Denominator, not Liquid Crystal Display).
Nigerian Joseph Benson went to JAIL based on BAN's completely fake, completely fabricated, completely false, completely disproven, completely fictitious and arbitrary statistic about "80% of E-Waste Exports". This isn't about getting people to believe one of us or the other is "lying through our teeth", it's a number which can be researched. A lot of American companies made a lot of money charging higher recycling fees, selling planned obsolescence, selling shredders, etc., based on the negative ad campaign against Asian and African high-tech recycling. A lot of us are complicit in this.
 |
| Researchers in Indonesia discovered a teeny tiny dragon. |
It's just bloody wrong to show pictures of children and dumps, and to portray the SKD business as "dumping on poor people". It is sending the signal to honest film-makers and reporters to go exoticize and "other-ize" technicians and repair people. It mis-informs the green movement, in a way that could discredit important other environmental issues, like climate change, deforestation, and ocean extinctions.
What to do with the lawsuit in my lap? BAN will distance themselves from their consultant, but now that he's said it on record, it gives credibility to the character witnesses who have told me that Jim P. himself said the same things about me to them, in private. This breaks open the he-said she-said.
We should demand that BAN disavow their fake statistics, or their credibility as a source of statistics. They may be making up numbers about export out of thin air. Their numbers mathematically disprove themselves, prima facia, because they apply the same 80% to numerators and denominators.
BAN makes money. They make money off of a story and they are trying to keep the story going. And real people who I've broken bread with are devastated.
This is wrong, people.
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