Part 1: Why You Can Be For African Development, Or Against Secondhand Imports, But NOT BOTH

Almost anything mined can and should be reused before that material is mined again. Almost anything mined can and should be reused before that material is mined again. Almost anything mined can and should be reused before that material is mined again.

Ask them.

The photo above was taken this week in a city in Spain.  It shows three carters.  Carter is a legal term (see New York City statute) for the job of pushing a cart through the street to look for items discarded by businesses and residents that can be economically salvaged and should be reused, repaired, or recycled.

This photo is interesting because it humanizes the carters.  I tweeted a photo last week of a carter showing up to scavenge a waste container ten minutes after a previous carter had already sorted through it. In the photo above, two carters have idled their own carts to help a third repair the broken wheel on his own cart - which contained a computer and microwave ("e-waste").

It's also interesting because it's an opportunity to follow the cart, and see that 80% of it is sold locally to European formal sector scrap yards, by the African immigrants. The only things they keep to ship home are working and repairable devices... to countrymen who develop Africa, not dump on it.

Here is another shot taken of a fourth carter less than an hour later - he had picked up a bag of discarded croissants and was taking the time to feed birds with it. Tuppence, Tuppence, Tuppence a bag.

 

There was one white man pushing a cart whose photo I decided not to take. I wondered why I was afraid to snap it.  Is the privacy of a white man more sacrosanct, I wondered?

Here is the point - European "Europol" press releases about the "criminals" exporting e-waste in the same country - Spain - specifically reference a 2010 enforcement measure which was completely and thoroughly exposed as fraud.  The 80% statistic (improper e-waste) was a fraud in 2010. The men - Puckett, Lord Smith, and Mike "Fishing as a Boy" Anane - who presented at the 2010 launch of "Project Eden" were all either liars or fools. I was there in Washington DC at the launch and raised my hand and asked where the statistic that 80% of exports were or should be illegal came from. My blogs that year seeded research at Memorial University, MIT, Arizona State University, California State University, University Pontifica Catholica de Peru (PUCP) and others, and led to reports by Adam Minter (Recycling International, Scrap, Junkyard Planet and Secondhand) and a SPANISH documentary about Joe "Hurricane" Benson.

But it's understandable that a Spain Environmental Policeman would fail to see those research documents, documentaries, and still operate under the 2010 "Project Eden" evil e-waste export paradigm.

The point of my filming these Spain "Carters" is that it should be a simple case of Community Policing. If the Spain environmental officials talked to the men pushing these carts and asked why they picked up the PC and microwave - they aren't paid to take it, and pay considerable money to export it. The "avoided disposal cost" theory of motives is poppycock.

Why not ask Africans?  Why is no African interviewed in the press releases, or in the news broadcasts about the Canary Island arrests?

For years I've left pinned an interview of an African Tech Sector expert, Emmanuel Nyaletey, who grew up near Agbogbloshie, which I took before I planned my first trip there to meet Adam Minter, J. Ottaviani, and Juan Solera's team. It was crystal clear to me when I interviewed Nyaletey what I'd see in Accra, before I booked my ticket.

This blog is begging Spanish people to ask someone about the theory that Africans pick up European waste to avoid environmental costs and ship them to their diaspora friends and family to be burned. It's racist garbage.

Here is an interview of a former carter from another city - Accra - who pushed salvage carts in Ghana's capital, on paved streets, just like the Spain carters I filmed this week.  I interviewed him to ask what his work in Agbogbloshie was like, what it was about.  If Spain and Europol officials don't have time to go outside and interview a carter on their own street, can they at least click on a youtube video before issuing arrest warrants?

I'm trying to reach the Defense and Prosecutors of the Canary Islands "E-Waste Dumping" case to fly myself down to provide expert testimony - not on what was done in Spain's Canary Islands, but about what happens to secondhand imports by Africa's Tech Sector.

It's not impossible that fraud was committed.  I've seen fraud committed, though it's usually the result of a ridiculous legal technicality and not a violation of any environmental standard.  But it's also fraudulent to use photos of wire burning at an African city dump to depict what Africa's Tech Sector does with the secondhand electronics they purchase, pay to ship, pay customs duties, and sell to the Tech Sector.

It is possible that Africa has 170,000 mobile phone towers today. It is not possible that Africans could have invested in that infrastructure without the sale of secondhand flip phones they purchased in the USA, Europe, Japan, China, etc.

It is possible that Africa had more than 300 TV stations in 1984 (when I lived in Cameroon). It is not possible that Africans could have watched TV, financed programming, or invested in those mass communications networks without the import of secondhand CRT televisions.

It is possible that Africans stream the internet in every city.  It is not possible that investors would have financed the cables, satellites, and servers relying on brand new computers to provide the critical mass of users.

It is possible that Africa will, one day, have a formal recycling process for electronic scrap - and more importantly, for scrap automobiles, refrigerators, and single use plastic containers.  It will not be possible to develop that recycling infrastructure by holding back African development.

The photo above I took in a north Ghana electronics reuse and repair shop, where the technicians were interviewed by Spanish filmmakers in 2016. They buy working electronics, repairable electronics, and do repairs for Africans whose screens break, or have power supply issues, just as we do. In their spare time this day, I saw they were watching David Attenborough films on Africa's wildlife.  I just wish I had snapped a picture of them watching it.

It is possible that Africans will learn to care about endangered habitats and species and implement protections in time to save them.  It will not be possible without mass communications, and those communications would not be possible without Africa's wonderful, creative, funny, intelligent, and elegant Tech Sector Workers.

If you interview the Carters, you will find they do business with the Tech Sector. If they aren't sure something is worth testing or repairing, they will call their buyers before putting it on an expensive sea container.

The crime is by the police... it's collateral damage. They aren't doing the basic community policing that would have made this obviously not an Agbogblshie related e-waste crime.  What's despicable is that Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) ran a link to the Europol arrests and used a photo of people burning automobile harnesses in Accra.  STEP knows better.  They are guilty of Ongoing Criminal Negligence.  If they don't contact the Spanish and Europol Authorities first, I certainly will get there and they better contact me if they want to put their best foot forward.  They didn't respond yet to my blistering critique of their Linkedin Post last week.

The purpose of the blog these days is to find a record years later of "i told you so".  I reach out faster via Linkedin, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Twitter... but those toldyasos get lost in the daily feeds. This is a toldyaso I'll be linking to all year until we stop the #HurricanJoeBenson arrests.