Is the UNU E-waste Research Program Ever Going to Learn?

 I'm a little behind in editing and posting a number of draft blogs, but just sent this email to a university professor who shared a Grist article with me.

The Grist article is not that bad. But listen as I go on a tear of the UNU program (source of data in the Grist article). I used to have a friendly relationship with the UNU e-waste program. But they are fricking racists, and it's time to drop the mic on uncle bubba.

When I meet with the UNU boys (who are convincingly nice) I can smell the ruffled feathers. But they doubled down specifically on Joseph "Hurricane" Benson, and when proven completely wrong, hid their BS 80% press release statistic (switching from "primitively managed" to "undocumented" means "we didn't know what we were talking about when we said primitively managed but we don't want to retract our 80% BS statements in the past used to sentence the guy we applauded the arrest and sentencing of, so we use "informal sector" to imply that black techs are to be mistrusted")

Now that I have our attention, I share what I really think via the email below. Wake up, UNU. Every Univesity researcher who read you study has discredited it as Criminal Negligence. The fact that it's still being cited by environmental publications like Grist just show you to be the Thomas Midgely of surplus electronics management.

Dr. Ron 

Jul 12, 2021, 9:19 PM (10 hours ago)

to me, Rohi


I thought you two might find this interesting, and maybe everyone else in OBADA would, as well.

https://grist.org/technology/electronic-waste-will-go-down-because-of-covid-but-for-all-the-wrong-reasons/

I have to thank the article for introducing me to the phrase “the pile of denial”, referring to people’s accumulated unused electronics.

Ron




(Response)


Robin Ingenthron

8:00 AM (2 minutes ago)

to Ron, Rohi


Not to put too fine a point on it....

The UNU (United Nations University, source of the article) is a fountainhead of Ptolemy. The research program on "ewaste" was premised a decade ago on the notorious bullshit statistic about 80%

The UNU staunchly defended the 80% statistic years after the source of the statistic declared we pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. They even inserted an inset in their 2015 report aimed at yours truly, denouncing my defense of Joe "Hurricane" Benson, the Nigerian born UK TV repairman sentenced to 60 months in prison based on the UK bannister's statement that it was "common knowledge" that 80% of what he exported from the UK was bound for landfill and dumping (despite Benson's documentation that his cost of disposing bad units in the UK was zero, and his cost per container was 5000 BP to ship).

USC, Memorial U, UPCP, ASU and other universities followed up subsequently and absolutely demolished the UNU reports (see articles "Criminal Negligence" 1 and 2 in Discard Studies, which used UNU's own documents in its own report to obliterate it's 80% bad exports claim in its own Executive Summary and press release). Dr. Josh Lepawsky meticulously obliterated UNU's report in 2018 Reassembling Rubbish, which backfilled Adam Minter's coverage of Joe Benson in 2019 Secondhand.

The UNU has retreated a bit shamefully by continuing to use 80% as "undocumented" using a worldwide generation number and hiding behind the "informal sector" in most of that market managing most of the surplus property, scrap and waste.

If you know any good sociology professors or Ph'd students, the UNU coverage of the e-waste story over the past decade is a master class in the Charitable Industrial Complex, systemic racism (if black people buy it, assume it is primitive), and privilege (UK House of Commons had a report stating that the UNU figures actually showed that exports were primarily reused, but that the loss of "strategic minerals" nevertheless supported shredding that equipment in the UK to prevent the coppper from going back to the former colonies that mined it).

Take the blue pill... the world is better than ever for one species. The damage is being done upstream, in mining and refining, and everyone has a fetish attached to their downstream liability, which causes the hoarding in the Grist article (fear of something bad happening to used stuff when we upgrade to new stuff).

Speaking of upstream, OBADA or OBS should pitch our product directly to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Just go way upstream to the chip maker, get them to embed the OBIT, then tell USA Procurement industry organization to recommend all semicoductor purchases require the OBIT for surplus property tracking purposes. Then we only need Intel and Samsung to follow suit (and maybe Apple I guess but they think different).


Robin