Fair Trade Recycling: Deleted By Trolls on Slashdot.org? Cal Milmo Redux?

Somda:  I can do that.

I've been completely unsuccessful in keeping this story alive on Slashdot.   We need to go Reddit or StumbledUpon.  Deleted from Slashdot Submissions:

retroworks writes  "They came to our African city dumps and photographed children burning scrap — scrap that was thrown away after decades of use. Then they said our African businessmen and women had imported the junk recently, and dumped 80-90% of it. Our entrepreneurs have been arrested, and our internet cafes and hospitals denied IT equipment, and our citizens told to buy brand new devices which they cannot afford, or which — when made cheaply — fail at a higher rate than the quality used equipment. And the Environmentalist who use our children's images keep the money, and don't share a dime with Africa." 

This damning quote from Jean Frederic Fahiri Somda of Burkina Faso , who opened the Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit, was not the first to defend Africans accused of creating "e-waste" dumps in European and USA media — an allegation that has recently resulted in the arrest of 40 African export businesses in Europe, and allegations by EPA that Egyptian businesses who purchased CRT monitors in the USA for $21 each intended to crudely recycle them. 

At the FTR Summit, Field Studies and Surveys from US International Trade Commission, Basel Convention Secretariat, IDC, MIT, Memorial University, ASU, etc. presented at the Summit consistently predicted that 85-90% of used electronics purchased by Africans will be reused for years before reaching the dump. African representatives claimed that USA and European reused equipment is less prone to returns than affordable (Chinese) new equipment."
This damning quote from Jean Frederic Fahiri Somda of Burkina Faso , who opened the Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit, was not the first to defend Africans accused of creating "e-waste" dumps in European and USA media — an allegation that has recently resulted in the arrest of 40 African export businesses in Europe, and allegations by EPA that Egyptian businesses who purchased CRT monitors in the USA for $21 each intended to crudely recycle them. 
At the FTR Summit, Field Studies and Surveys from US International Trade Commission, Basel Convention Secretariat, IDC, MIT, Memorial University, ASU, etc. presented at the Summit consistently predicted that 85-90% of used electronics purchased by Africans will be reused for years before reaching the dump. African representatives claimed that USA and European reused equipment is less prone to returns than affordable (Chinese) new equipment."

None of the links goes anywhere unvetted or controversial, or to a self-blog.  The key link is to live recordings of professional researchers.   They all agree with Mr. Somda.  The arrests of African used goods importers is a perverse outcome, a type of environmental malpractice, a defamation, an unintended consequence, or even an example of racial profiling gone absolutely wrong.



NGO's (Basel Action Network and Greenpeace) have completely failed to respond in any way to the numerous studies showing that 85-90% of African WEEE imports are for reuse (and generally higher quality than "affordable new").  BAN has actually publicly retracted its estimates in "Reuse Excuse" that 80-90% of the exports are for dumping ("it was an estimate, there is no study").

But despite polling showing that most people and reporters continue to accept the premise, someone at Slashdot Environmental keeps downgrading the article.   The CAER group is trying to preserve the proven false and disinherited statistics circulated hysterically by Cal Milmo of the UK Independent, and attributed (without any numbers or study) to Interpol's 2009 Emile Lundemiller's report.

Africans at the Summit say the BAN.org claims are perposterous, that they fail, prima facia, on face value, to show that they were ever sourced.  The pictures of children at African dumps are  real, but they are burning TVs and computers imported decades ago and reused in plain sight.

How can we give Africans a voice in their trumped up Environmental Trial?  When will Environmental Malpractice be recognized by Environmentalists as a bigger #wastecrime?  When will we stop distracting valuable Interpol enforcers from their work with ivory poaching, bushmeat trading, illegal mining, mercury pollution, etc., and stop the witch-hunts against the Geeks of Color?

Why would Cahal Milmo not want to interview Fred Somda?  Why would he continue to beat the best and brightest entrepreneurs, like baby Canadian seals, with article after article of proven false allegations that most of the goods imported are primitively dumped?

I'm always cautioned against attacking journalists.  I come from a journalist family.  But there has been no fair coverage of this issue.  I've been told I accidentally repeated false information by Cal Milmo in my blog, notified by someone from BJ Electronics in the UK, and I'm now furious that I have reprinted false "settlement" news based on Cal Milmo's article.    Even I've been sucked into the false story, and I'm not at all pleased.

Greeenpeace snuck a sabotaged TV into Joseph Benson's reuse plant in the UK.   Basle Convention reporters swooped in and took apart 279 sea containers, and found 85-90% reuse, and found most of the value was from sophisticated technical workers who have supplied African hospitals and internet cafes for decades.   Basel Studies completely refute the 2009 Interpol study.   But Cahal still reports that Joseph Benson is a criminal.

I still don't know what happened in the UK.  I just know the African importers whom I am not allowed to sell to, and who are forced to buy the goods they can afford in back alleys, from less reputable recyclers than my staff in Vermont.   It sucks that we can no longer sell to Egypt.  But I'm not one of the recyclers who wears the badge of "not exporting" with pride.    I'm ashamed as an environmentalist.  I know what Fred Somda says to be true - internet is more important to Africans than paved roads and running water.  And what it is supposed to provide is the truth, not half-backed defamatory articles.  I have repeatedly tweeted to Mr. Milmo, and he never responds.  Nor does CBS 60 Minutes.

Maybe he'll listen to one of you.  Send him nice emails saying that maybe he should let his pen cool and spend some time on the USITC, IDC, Basel Convention, and University research studies.  I don't blame him for doing an incredibly easy "gotcha" study on recyclers.  But journalists need to tell BAN and Greenpeace that there's a price to be paid when a well -meaning journalist is used to reprint false data, leading to false arrests, defamations, etc., when the BAN or Greenpeace admits publicly that their "80-90%" primitive number was made up, fictitious, a lie, and they are charging money for it and not sharing a dime of their money with the African children they claim to save.  The Parasites of the Poor, their day is coming, and it's the window of time the Independent needs to get itself out of the line of fire, or they will be laughingstocks against the wall come the revelation.

Cahal Milmo

Cahal Milmo is the chief reporter of The Independent and has been with the paper since 2000. He was born in London and previously worked at the Press Association news agency. He has reported on assignment at home and abroad, including Rwanda, Sudan and Burkina Faso, the phone hacking scandal and the London Olympics. In his spare time he is a keen runner and cyclist, and keeps an allotment.