@BillMaher @RealTimers Misinformed by NPR about Single Use Plastic Recycling

Sigh.  Bill Maher has given some of my favorite commentaries. But most of his comments about Plastic Recycling are Rubbish.

Here are some fact checks from last Friday's RealTimer claims about plastic recycling... in Bill's most finger wagging self-assured lecturing voice, Mr. Club Random poses as an expert in plastic recycling - something he has done over and over.  Because - I do believe this - he's an environmentalist who cares about the planet. 

But he's making up things about plastic recycling which will certainly lead to people not participating in plastic recycling collections, and he himself is doing more harm than good.

1.  Bill, the 9% of all plastic recycled is not 9% of single use containers. It included cars and electronics and all kinds of other plastic.

2. Bill, most of the "ocean patch" of plastic is vinyl from ships and shipping industry waste, not single use containers.

3. Bill, the people who fly to the USA to inspect bales of plastic scrap, price it, pay for it (more than the value of paper these days), pay truckers to load it onto ships, and then bring it to the plastic factories which have web sites and are licensed by their governments and who pay taxes on it at customs - no, no, no, Bill - they do NOT then throw them in the ocean.

4. Bill, the textiles and other plastic items made out of recycled plastic would otherwise be made out of virgin plastic. And even incredibly weak recycling systems for plastic are obviously better than that.

5. Dear Bill, check out the Oregon DEP study on the lifecycle costs of different types of packaging, learn about forests and mining, and stop making our environmental degradation all about one type of lightweight packaging which happens to make a lot of sense as a lightweight anti-spoilage container.

Bill Maher is partially right about recycling creating moral licensing which may cause overconsumption of natural resources to a degree offsetting the value of the recycling.

But like @BillMaher likes to say about "progress" on social fronts, the progress made in plastic recycling - which started when the Bottle Bill states collected enough PETE to sustain a critical mass of material to invest in it - is not "fake".

What AI Says About This Blog. Kinda Now, Kinda Wow....

 The Good Point Recycling blog (retroworks.blogspot.com), authored by Robin Ingenthron, features a wide range of influential posts focused on ethical electronics recycling and e-waste management. Some of the most popular and influential topics include:

1. Critique of the UNU E-Waste Research Program: One of the more impactful posts challenges the statistics and methodologies used by certain global institutions in the e-waste industry, particularly around how e-waste exports to developing countries are portrayed.

2. Solar Panel Recycling Initiatives: This blog highlights solar panel reuse projects, discussing the complexities of repurposing panels in developing nations and comparing it to historical issues around CRT (cathode ray tube) recycling.

3. Fair Trade Recycling Advocacy: Many posts advocate for "fair trade recycling," arguing that developing countries benefit from access to secondhand electronics, which should be seen as an opportunity for technology transfer rather than a dumping issue.

These posts draw attention due to their deep, often critical analysis of global e-waste practices and the underlying motivations of international organizations involved in e-waste regulation.

For more insights and to explore influential posts on e-waste and electronics recycling, you can visit the blog directly.

Can Anyone Explain the Basel Convention?? Part 3

For years, Basel Convention advocates have been saying it is based on waste externalization - Industrialized nations should not externalize their environmental management to non-industrialized nations.

So true, then.

Today, the Basel Convention Amendment isn't about waste externalization. It is about Industrialized nations internalizing mined raw materials, and parts... keeping strategic materials in country... and preventing Emerging Markets from the "white box computer" path to manufacturing.

Metals internalization money is bigger than waste externalization $.

In Part One, we recognized that no recycling facility or activity, anywhere, is in any way banned by the Basel Convention.  Every facility, every worker, everything continues.  But we segregate the path of trade.  Ibrahim in Niger can burn as many wires as he wants to, so long as those wires are from China, or Africa, or other non-OECD. But he cannot burn USA and EU wires. That is a solution to something psychological, not physical world.

Whether Hong Kong's e-waste facility is the high tech, state of the art, certified, insured and managed $550M EcoPark (above), or the misconstrued "Mr. Lai's Farm" (where Hong Kong EPA ruled that printers were not hazardous waste listed and allowed it to operate... no secrets), Basel Convention is silent.  

It does not say what a recycler can DO... all of Malaysia's permitted plastic recycling facilities operate purely under direction of Malaysia law, not international law.  Basel Convention only distinguishes the nationality (and some say identity) country those companies choose to buy FROM. 

Two countries can agree that a particular recycling trade (plastics or electronics parts harvesting) is legal or not considered "waste"... but Basel Convention says that if one is OECD (Mexico) and the other is non-OECD (e.g. Singapore) that the trade is violating the Convention.  Whether the consumer plastic is perfectly recycled in a plastic molder in Klang Malaysia, or fed to kittens in Switzerland, Basel Convention leaves that up to local authorities. But it has to be OECD plastic being fed to kittens in Switzerland, and only non-OECD plastic can be recycled at the plastic molding plant in Klang, Malaysia. 

It is purely about segregating buyers and sellers, not about defining proper standards!

In Part Two, we looked at how crazy "OECD" is, today, as a measure of a person's capacity to repair or recycle. It was iffy when Basel Convention was adapted, and today is a completely random indication of industrialized economies (what it was intended to represent). Singapore, the second most advanced economy in the world, refuses to become OECD - perhaps because they want to trade with 75% of the world's recycled materials supply rather than 25%.  The chart shows how much of the world's "industrialized" economy is now consuming raw materials in "third world" and "first world" economies (the chart is in dollars - in tonnage of raw materials, the lines have already completely crossed).

The Basel Convention is being abused by non-environmentalist actors simply to restrain trade. The more the "Industrialized" Nations become non-or-in-OECD, the more arbitrary the trade restrictions over those industrialized nations is.

It is broken. Jim Puckett won't let go, but I hope Daniel looks at this chart. China can dump on Africa, Africa can't sell properly manually dismantled e-scrap to Umicore, Africans can only buy third-hand electronics for repair, not secondhand nicer PCs they want to buy from rich places???

For me, Basel Convention should not be a religion. It was great in 1990, but there is nothing good happening for the future in these amendments.  Old stupid white men are screwing it up, and some even want to put repair trade into "Annex Bad".

Can Someone Explain Basel Convention? Part 2

So I just returned from the E-Scrap Conference in Orlando, Florida, held at the Orlando Hilton from September 30 to October 2.  The final session of the conference, moderated by Colin Staub, had 4 panelists.

Jim Puckett, Basel Action Network

Patricia Whiting, Whiting and Daswani Consulting

Craig Boswell, HOBI International (Texas)

Emmanuel Nyaletey, BridgeSolarPower.com 

First, what everyone basically agrees on.  "The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (hereinafter referred to as “the Basel Convention”) was adopted in 1989, in response to a public outcry following the discovery, in the 1980s, in Africa and other parts of the developing world of deposits of toxic wastes imported from abroad." (https://www.basel.int/TheConvention/Overview/History/Overview)

In general, the idea behind the Basel Convention was that industrialized nations shouldn't dump industrial hazardous waste on non-industrialized nations.  We can all agree that makes sense - industry makes money which should be spent on cleaning up the waste those industries make.  

Can Someone Explain Basel To Me?

The only thing that the Basel Convention does is infringe trade in scrap (which was not "waste" when the Convention was first written but later became a concern as a "loophole") between the "rich" (OECD) and "poor" (not OECD) people. 

Bring back the Negro Leagues to Make Recycling Great Again???

Because it certainly allows every Malaysian or Indonesian plastic recycler to buy whatever they want from the 75% of the world that is "not OECD."  The pictures, however sad, do not show anything not explicitly allowed by Basel Convention.

The Convention just advocates that poor people can buy from other poor people, but they cannot buy from rich people. Rich People (OECD) can sell used stuff to other rich people, poor people can recycle stuff from other poor people.

NO ACTIVITY IS CHALLEGED. Only IDENTITIES (nationality) are profiled.

It is purely segregation sold as a moral quality.  And fortunately, the Fair Trade Recycling board member Emmanuel Nyaletey will be on the panel to ask these questions to the audience... next to Jim Puckett of Basel Action Network next Wednesday in Orlando.

Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo: Lo-Fi Science Class with The Amoeba Pe...

I had written several paragraphs about the geniousness of simplicity - when a simpler answer (the planets and sun are not revolving around us, the planets and us revolve around the sun) is smarter than the more complicated explanation.

Somehow the text was deleted, so today I'm just serving up this nice Youtube explanation of how Galileo and Copernicus made everything simpler.

Emmanuel Nyaletey and BridgeSolarPower.com

Emmanuel Nyaletey and BridgeSolarPower.com

One must always balance the expression of joy against the "humble brag".  From time to time, I can't resist open enjoyment of the staffers and buyers who came to Good Point 

At this year's Orlando E-Scrap Conference, Emmanuel Nyaletey (and Patty Whiting) will be on a panel with our old friend, Jim Puckett.

Blog Readers will doubtless remember Jim Puckett's description of Agbogbloshie ("on the outskirts" of Accra rather than "dead center") in his creative writing essay "A Place Called Away". Less familiar, perhaps, was Emmanuel's 2014 X.com (TWITTER) video describing what Agbogbloshie actually is/was, from the point of view of a Ghanaian who grew up blocks away and who refurbished computers as a kid in Ghana.

The BridgeSolarPower.com plan is to work with OBADA.io to create Digital Product Passports. Africans who purchased secondhand solar panels - upgraded due to high real estate costs in OECD nations - can tag (QR code, blockchained) and regularly report on reuse for carbon credits.

Who might be against that?

No Joy in Mudville: Mighty Trumpy at the Bat

I try not to politic much on this blog, and have long rolled my eyes at do-gooders on the left, but my long, long defense of "others" in "mudville" makes this too tempting.  Image generated by OpenAI ChatGPT .  Nods to Ernest "Phinney" Thayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat 1888 Casey at the Bat poem.  Make Debates Great Again.

Trumpy at the Bat

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two, with but one inning left to play.
And when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, "If only Trumpy could but get a whack at that—
We'd put up even money now, with Trumpy at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Trumpy, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, and the latter was a fake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Trumpy getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Blake safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Trumpy, mighty Trumpy, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Trumpy’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Trumpy’s bearing and a smile on Trumpy’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Trumpy at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Trumpy’s eye, a sneer curled Trumpy’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Trumpy stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
“That ain’t my style,” said Trumpy. “Strike one!” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted someone on the stand;
And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Trumpy raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Trumpy’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Trumpy still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two!”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and the echo answered “Fraud!”
But one scornful look from Trumpy and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Trumpy wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Trumpy’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Trumpy’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Trumpy has struck out.

COP vs SOM: Officials And Parties and Plastic Sustainability

Let's look at the difference between between a Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) and a Conference of the Parties (COP) in the context of international meetings.

Key Differences

• Level of Participation: SOMs involve senior officials below the ministerial or head of state level, while COPs involve higher-level representatives and decision-makers.
• Purpose: SOMs are preparatory and focused on technical or preliminary discussions. COPs are decision-making forums where binding agreements can be made.
• Outcomes: SOMs produce draft documents, recommendations, or preparatory work. COPs can result in binding international agreements or significant policy decisions.

SOMs are preparatory meetings focused on groundwork and technical discussions, while COPs are high-level, formal meetings where binding decisions and significant agreements are made.

I noticed that if you visit, photograph, or record either SOMs or COPs, a layperson would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.  A bunch of people with titles and badges from various countries show up and vote on language concerning a new or existing convention.

Here is a video of a Senior Officials Meeting for the World Trade Organization.

The Guardian Environmental Division Experiences Situational Irony

Carmignac photojournalism award: Ghana and e-waste

Photojournalists Muntaka Chasant and Bénédicte Kurzen and investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas have documented the flow of electronic waste between Europe and Ghana for the 13^th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award

By Muntaka Chasant, Bénédicte Kurzen, Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Fondation Carmignac

The opening paragraph of the Guardian's weekend E-Waste Ghana Story is fascinating, because it goes on to completely disprove itself in award-winning own-goalism.  The Guardian attempts to actually do what we've been calling on them to do for more than a decade - interview the diaspora and the Tech Sector in the Importing Nations, and don't focus on Basel Action Network and Greenpeace's whitemansplaining of how people buy stuff for reuse.  In so attempting, not unlike 2015's UNEP Waste Report "Waste Crime Waste Risks" (where the documentation completely obliterated the Executive Summary, see "Criminal Negligence" reviews in Discard Studies), the Guardian completely nails its own coffin.

Jerry Sekou Adara: “I had a dispute with the environment department here in Holland and we went to court. I asked them: ‘How do you come to the conclusion that these goods are waste? Who checks them?’ Deciding that something is waste is like going to the doctor. You’re told what illness you have. Don’t say a television is waste beyond repair just because you plugged it in and didn’t see any image. The judge in court was a lady and a very good judge. I said to her: ‘Look, this laptop is not waste when it’s on your table, but it is waste when in African hands.’” She knew I was telling the truth. The economy is good for the people here – they don’t suffer – and what they think of as waste here, somebody will use in Africa.”

Environmentalist Spiritual Materialism vs. Cost Effective Circularity

This is a theme that - hopefully - runs deep in the tributaries and streams of consciousness throughout this blog... There is a limited amount of time and money to address the simultaneous and related emergencies of mass extinction, deforestation, climate change, toxic releases, and waste management. 

We will be judged, and should be, based on how our generation uses its limited resources as judiciously and economically as possible.  I started my environmental-spiritual aspirations with the premise that children yet to be born, whom I will never meet, and who will never know me, would judge all of us based on how we spend our time and resources, and whether we left them a better place, or a bigger mess.

Back when I was 17, I was thinking about how to direct my own career, spend my own life, as if I was personally going to be judged based on my own actions. Not that it was a bad place to start, but even then I was aware that my "shiny conscience" wouldn't matter much to a child born 500 years from now. If it did, I should have devoted myself to a Buddhist monastery, rather than to our society's collective resource conservation.

Let me propose that we will be judged, by future children or by the Singularity (AI), based on math... how much more sustainable was one rule or regulation over the free market. Primum non nocere - first, do no harm.

ITAN: Intellectually Toxic Anecdotal Nonsense Problems

There is a disturbing pattern, not just in the Environmental Movement, but probably across all social communication, propped up by ever weaker journalism editorial systems.

Someone publishes an article, or a paper. Take the 2002 Basel Action Network's "Exporting Harm" paper on the river samples of Guiyu, China. 

1. Basel Action Network publishes the paper with a photo of a child sitting on circuit board scrap (posed upon, film major Jim Puckett admitted to me personally, though Jim seems to forget everything he admits over the years).

2. The White Paper makes an assertion that "80%" of used electronics and scrap is exported to places like Guiyu.

3. The White Paper makes an assertion that "80%" (of the 80% above? unclear) is managed improperly in so-called "primitive" conditions.

Carbon Recycling: It's Procuring Hardened Cement Stupid

citation:  Nick Beckelman, Scientific American, February 2023

A number of articles are emphasizing that "recycled carbon content" cement has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases even more than electric vehicles does.  

Solving Cement’s Massive Carbon Problem

New techniques and novel ingredients can greatly reduce the immense carbon emissions from cement and concrete production

BY MARK FISCHETTI, NICK BOCKELMAN & WIL V. SRUBAR

In this blog I explore how Recycling Policy Organizations like MassRecycle.org, NERC.org, ReMA.org, EarthwormRecycling.org, NRRArecycles.org have the experience to look at "recycled content" rules of procurement to become important to putting "hardened cement" (the value-added by captured carbon ash in the cement) into the quiver of EPR and procurement law.

How do we get our memberships to think about cement manufacturing as an important "recycled content" story, as we did with recycled content paper procurement in the 1990s?  I guess we need to write complicated blogs hoping to get the interests of academics who we can then get to make the "recycled content cement" case, invite them as conference speakers. Part of this "fishing for swordfish" strategy will involve incorporating keywords that keep the Tilapia and Perch of the press interested in our press releases.

If recycling advocates currently consider glass aggregate / daily cover in our recycling rates (never an obvious call to raw material originalists, but that referee's call has sailed), I was wondering about some forms of carbon sequestration, especially cement and concrete.  See article in Nature below.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43246-024-00546-9

The process described captures carbon and re-infuses it in cement kilns.  Now I note 2 reasons not to claim this, but no reason not to make it part of our message even if it's outside our silo (similar to GMA1872 being outside the silo but in direct competition with recycling markets)..

1. Carbon at the point it's captured in the process is not "solid" waste - though it becomes solid, in the cement, after the process.

2. Cement manufacturing processes are outside our silo/focus at organizations like MassRecycle.

(I will later try to link all of the authors names so they find this eventually)

more

18 Years. Might as well be Me.

For me, the origin of this blog is a kind of central - well, some would say conceit - but sense of purpose that I trace back to late adolescence. At my 40th Reunion at Carleton College a week ago, I wandered the grounds, dared to speak deeply with old friends and mere former acquaintances.  Food service (SAGA), student governance, the college recycling program, Peace Corps interviews, dancing and romance... all in the orbit of my ego.

The origin of that Ego was a very religious or spiritual seeking period, contemplating becoming a Buddhist Monk, during high school.  My pal Jenny at our Carleton College 40th reunion last weekend noted that I had arrived at Carleton my Freshman year engaged to be married (to a different Jennifer), and how did that line up with the monastery mode I contemplated?  I said my guess was that a guy considering becoming a monk was attractive.  Jenny said she could definitely see that point.  And it was textbook Spiritual Materialism (Trungpa ref).  The adolescent was more likely to get laid by acting righteous.

This cuts two ways today.  On the one hand, even if I'm not particularly religious now, and more certain of uncertainty than of faith, I do advise young people that a 3-4 year period of spiritual exploration - even if Materialistic - will compound over your life. Like a launch pad. That period of striving to meditate and pray did, I believe, give me confidence the rest of my life to act as an Agent of Conscience - which was my stated goal at high school graduation. The root of the word "sin" is missing the mark, failing to hit the target you are aiming for. We all miss a mark, but the harder we try to hit it the less the arrow goes astray.

Another Carleton alum friend at dinner was speaking to me about my time as Carleton Student Association (CSA) President, when I was vehemently making noise about a 16% tuition increase.  I told him that the Administration told me there were two traditions to uphold... that Carleton was rare in giving the student association a vote on the budget.  And that in the history of the college, the Trustees had always been given a unanimous vote by Administration, Professors, and the Student Body Association.  I told my dinner companion that I said it was damn time to break that tradition if they were using students as a straw for federal Pell money (formerly grants, then converted to loans). I don't know if that vote against the tuition increase was the reason Carleton waitlisted my kids, but as I said to Admissions Officer Thibadeau, it was certainly their loss.  The point however being that my pal at dinner said that at the time, he thought I was making noise and posturing.  But he said in retrospect, I was absolutely right, and the colleges needed to be aware of the growing college debt they were introducing to a generation or two of students.

Google AI Is Wrong. Expired Aspirin Will NOT Give You a Stroke

Hallucination by Google Search AI Explained

While tidying up at my mother's home in rural Arkansas' Ozark Mountains, I found two bottles of aspirin, in the same bathroom medicine cabinet.  Maybe I could combine them in to one bottle?

But I noticed - by sight and by taste, that the bottle on the left was considerably older than the one on the right. Does it matter? Does aspirin "expire" or deteriorate in effectiveness with time? It's an acid, so acids probably do weaken over time if there's anything non-acid to interact with.

So I googled "Does Aspirin Expire?"  And Google AI suggests three responses, without links to easily check them out - though there are dates.

First - Aspirin is most effective within five years, and is safe and effective for years after the expiration date on the label - looks very accurate.

Second - OEM Bayer advice that aspirin should be discarded after Bayer's suggestd 2-3 year expiration date. No link to Bayer's study, and no citation of FDA recommendation.  Sure, Bayer wants us to buy more aspirin from them, and may be paying Google to place this "self interested" content.

Third - Insanity.

"Taking expired aspirin could raise your risk of serious health issues, such as stroke". Nov 1, 2022

So it sounds like Google AI is saying that I may have a stroke for taking the older aspirin.  And there's no easy way to see where the AI is getting that, but I eventually found it.

Defense of Importation of Used Electronics and the Geeks of Color

 

Tonight I asked AI to summarize the theme of my blog in two paragraphs.

Meanwhile I have had zero feedback or demand for my company's INDIUM bearing panels

War and Peace and the Global South

 This early morning blog is inspired by a couple of Fareed Zakaria analogies posted on X.

Spoiler: It's the Females and Youths, Stupid.

This one with General David Petraeus explains why Israel's Generals are splitting with Netanyahu.  If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Fareed and Petraeus describe America's success in uniting Sunnis and Shia Muslims in Iraq to counter the tribalist ISIS fear and threat-based war on "western civilization" / imposed democracy.

What America represents, at its best, is an alternative to tribalism. Melting iron and zinc together makes a stronger metal (steel) than either iron or zinc. The America "Melting Pot" analogy of the strength of immigration may well be over-plugged and can certainly be criticized for historical injustices, but it's not "wrong". The resentments of European tribes lasted far longer in Europe than their immigrants to the USA posted "Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply". 

As this 2015 NYT article explains, in a review of classified ads from 1855 (ten years before the US Civil War, and during Bleeding Kansas), the employment discrimination was not just ethnic, but was also religious.  "Catholic" was interchangeable with "Irish" in job discrimination.  

Where the "Global South" has succeeded, an element of voluntary melting pot has been necessary, and where the north has waged economy-ruining wars - like Russia v. Ukraine - involuntary efforts to end tribes has been bad for everybody.

What brings hope is a future generation of 15 to 25 year olds who can envision post-tribal, post-lingual, post-religious, post-melanin (skin pigmentation) melting. And I am optimistic that the number of interracial, interreligious, intersectual, interlinguist, intertribal marriages are increasing the number of future 25 year olds able to see the potential wealth in places like Brazil and Nigeria.

Should we switch to Substack?

There are still important things that we, in the actual trade in electronics reuse and recycling, can share. But if Google is de-platforming its own blogspot platform, I have to consider moving this entire discussion to Substack.

The risk is that we lose the 30-55 average blogspot views (way down from 2015) and have an unviewed substack. Substack is not showing up in my page 1 Google searches, there's probably a riff (maybe Google is "protecting" blogspot while another wing of the office is killing it?)

And here is your reward for reading this.

Reused solar panels will be tagged with these Avery Labelled stickers, with OBADA.io blockchain tracked QR codes, which Africans can scan with their mobile phones to upload photos - which have GPS location - proving it is NOT IN AGBOGBLOSHIE.

more

Google Warning - retroworks.blogspot.com losing 592+ Posts

Well, it was a depressing email in my gmail box this morning.  Google will stop indexing a huge number of posts from this blogspot.

I've always been aware of my mortality, and of the mortality of my ethical recycling messages. I have books on my shelf which are long, long out of print, which are both central to my morality and my thesis, and which I know are unlikely to ever be read again, much less appreciated by mentorees.

But the first one I looked at in the Google Indexing purge kind of stung.

It was from autumn 2009, when I had been a background check source for CBS Sixty Minutes producer Solly Granatstein, about Scott Pelley's notorious "wasted" minutes flying around with BAN.org's Jim Puckett, who was describing huge imports of CRT desktop monitors (purchased for $10 apiece, bearing only $2 of scrap copper) as being "primitively" mismanaged in Guiyu.

http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2009/08/cbs-60-minutes-wasteland-unseen-footage.html

Solly and Michelle Rey had stopped responding to my emails asking them to run a follow up or correction to the story, which had shown no evidence of CRTs processed in Guiyu, despite the claim "we followed the trail".

So I checked that one, and because the film evidence of the factories that had actually purchased the monitors circled by helicopter were posted in picasaweb, a google product offered to bloggers like myself for photo uploads, and Google has since stopped supporting picasaweb, that the blog will no longer show up in searches.  So if you are a journalism student looking for CBS Wasteland's Polk Award on CRT disposal allegedly occuring in China in 2008, you won't find me.

A lot of people I met - "Swordfish" - in my career met me through the circulation of that specific blog. Author Adam Minter for example asked what to look for when he visited Guiyu (the three-story integrated IC chip market - Guiyu was a reuse-of-CPU and chips market, not a CRT monitor refurbisher. And what is upstream of the river where BAN's "samples" showed poisons more associated with textile manufacturing than e-waste). Adam later visited CRT remanufacturing factories. He's a journalist with actual knowledge of recycling. But the blog that connected us is now gone unless Google accepts my correction (now linked to photos.google not picasaweb).

But am I going to take the time to re-edit 520+ blogs? I had to find the one on CBS Wasted Leads via the Wayback Machine site to locate it and find the dated address to correct it on blogspot.

Externalization Fallacy: Total Eclipse of the Truth 2002-2020

I recently met someone quite interested in Ethical E-Waste Blog who was 10 years old in 2002. 

Then I met someone who was 5 years old when CBS 60 Minutes broadcast "Wasteland" in 2008.

Both flattered me by saying this blog was "inspirational".  So I guess I gotta keep it up.

I also recently ran across a lot of film camera photos from my first visit to Guangzhou, China, in 2003. That was 21 years ago. It was a Shark Tank worthy experience.  Even if 5-6 blog visitors will find this to be a repeat, there are some new recruits whose minds have yet to be blown. And maybe some readers will be glad for the reminder.

Simon Lin. (Acer, Wistron)

Terry Gou. (Foxconn, Han Hoi Precision Inst.)

Rowell Yang. (Proview, "iPad")

These three men were the head of "contract manufacturing" when IBM, Dell, HP etc. declared that "display devices" were "commodities", not core manufacturing. Sony had, well, "colonized" Taiwan in the contract manufacturing of  CRT displays and now Guangdong Province had been "free=market" friendly thanks to Deng Xiaoping ... Who was famous for being patiently waiting for Mao to die while watching Taiwan and Hong Kong blow the gasket on free market manufacturing.

Used Ford Model As created the critical mass of users in the Ozarks and Appalachia who would vote to pave the roads.

Used VCRs and CRT televisions paved the roads for thousands of TV stations and satellites broadcasting to the "Global South".

Used CRT monitors paved the roads for internet cable investors.

Used Flip Phones paved the roads for 170,000 cell phone towers (2017 estimate) on the Africa continent.

Used Solar Voltaic Panels will pave the way for Africans to reduce diesel-electricity generation.

Despite the obvious facts about electricity access and consumption, the truth about the information and mass communications infrastructure, paved by progress from reuse and value-added repair, by the Tech Sector Auteurs, aka Geeks of Color like Simon Lin, Terry Gou, and Rowell Yang, the West (at least Europe and USA) press coverage of their bright past present and future has been eclipsed by an "externalization hypothesis" - that any capitalist trade between someone rich and someone poor is suspect. 

Imagine the Moon refusing to leave... a persistent, stubborn eclips of the truth...

It's the April Fools Blog Day?

Seriously, some of the best and most read Good Point Ideas Blogs were on April Fools Day.

But Jim Puckett and BAN were the subjects of the best
ones. And He is a Nobody Today.

UNITAR Global E-Waste "Monitor" 2024: Better, but still kinda cringy?

I have yet to read more than the Executive Summary and Table of Contents of the new UNEP Global E-Waste Monitor report, but I can already see that it's being mis-reported.  The "hook" is an emergency, that only 22.3% of e-waste is "documented", and the rest (the Executive Summary implies), is presumed to be "improperly" managed or "lost" to the so-called "informal sector".

Readers may remember this blog previously defined "informal sector" as "a white person didn't enter it into a spreadsheet"... in response to the "Criminal Negligence" 2015 Report.

UNITAR (another UN agency) describes the reports findings as follows:

"Meanwhile, less than one quarter (22.3%) of the year’s e-waste mass was documented as having been properly collected and recycled in 2022, leaving US $62 billion worth of recoverable natural resources unaccounted for and increasing pollution risks to communities worldwide. "

The "five fold growth" in "e-waste" is describing worldwide generation, not just wealthy countries.  This raises questions about the measurement of "undocumented" used electronics... but lets list a few obvious premises.

1.  The size of electronics PER CAPITA is declining due to the miniaturization effect.  In 1992 it peaked because we needed a desk phone, an answering machine, a fax machine, a camera, a radio, etc.... all of which now fit inside the smart phone in my front pocket.  

2. The export market, which the previous 2015 UNEP Report described as "primitive", is mostly for reuse.  So if there was less e-waste generated in the past compared to the future, that can only be explained by the continuous reuse of past devices which continue to be reused and maintained in places like Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, etc.  

3. The UNEP reports conflate the end of first consumer use with "waste generated", as if reuse and repair, if not "documented", is in the "ewaste" volume assesssed.  That would mean that if a white person owns a TV for ten years, and it's purchased and reused by an African for another 40 years, that the "waste" is counted twice - the first time it was "generated" and the actual "end of life" of the TV.

Photo of TV Repairman Ibrahim Alhassan in Savelugu, Ghana, who we introduced to author Adam Minter, who wrote about Ibrahim in the seminal reuse non-fiction book "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale".  Ibrahim was repairing a 1970 Japanese CRT television, or rather improving it by addint a remote control function absent in the original knob-tuned TV.  This TV certainly would have been destroyed by "Big Shred" in Europe decades ago... but hard to describe the African's continuous use and extended life as "primitive"... unless you are a wee bit racially-profilly.

Electricity Stupid.

For 25 years, since I left MA DEP to start my own used electronics repair, export, and recycling company, there has been a blind spot in the entire environmental movement.

It has not been about waste.

It has not been about externalization.

It has been about electricity.

The growth in access to and consumption of electricity worldwide has been extremely well documented by GapMinder (Hans Rosling), the international monetary fund, carbon monitoring / clean energy, big petroleum, the airlines, USA AID, the State Department, and every industry that manufactures anything that consumes electricity. 

The screenshot above, from the World Bank Data page, is remarkable for two reasons. 

Third Try With ChatGPT Audit of This Blogspot

 ChatGPT

ChatGPT

Thank you for the clarification. Allow me to revise the explanation to accurately reflect the perspective of the retroworks.blogspot.com blog:

The retroworks.blogspot.com blog was pivotal in challenging common misconceptions surrounding the export of electronic waste (e-waste). Contrary to prevailing beliefs that a significant portion of exported e-waste was harmful or non-recyclable, the blog advocated for a different narrative. It argued that a considerable percentage, approximately 80%, of e-waste exports were actually beneficial and conducive to responsible recycling practices.

This perspective was based on the premise that not all e-waste exports were destined for illegal or environmentally damaging operations. Instead, many exports consisted of valuable materials and components that could be effectively recycled and reused in environmentally sound processes. By highlighting the positive aspects of e-waste exports, the blog sought to challenge the stigma associated with such practices and promote a more nuanced understanding of the global e-waste trade.

In doing so, the blog played a crucial role in reframing the discourse surrounding e-waste management and fostering a more balanced and informed dialogue on the subject. It encouraged readers to reconsider prevailing assumptions and engage in critical analysis of the complexities surrounding e-waste recycling and export practices.

Overall, the retroworks.blogspot.com blog was instrumental in challenging misconceptions and advocating for a more nuanced understanding of the e-waste trade, particularly regarding the potential benefits of responsible recycling practices associated with e-waste exports.

Civilization corrals the Amygdalas: Howler Monkey Gods

Amygdala Hijacking sounds uncivilized. But it's hard to imagine a society without it.

Societies will always vote for a dictator over chaos, or in reaction to a fear of anarchy.  But this isn't a political post, at least not yet. 

First a disclaimer... I believe in "Western Civilization", but think the term "West" is in some ways a historical accident. The great library burnings in the mideast, Alexandria, and most especially the Aztec/Inca libraries destroyed by self-proclaimed Spanish "Christians" hid the evolution of other logical and obviously city-pyramid-construction-capable cultures. 

But while "cultural cleansing" is a historically obvious problem, the current DEI narrative fails to recognize its universality. Am I mistaken, or didn't Hopi Indians build pueblo structures whose sole purpose was to protect them from the Apache "race". Incas had wars and who knows how many libraries were burned by Alexander the Great? Or how much of the greatest loss - the library of Alexandria - was pilfered from other libraries in Mesopotamia and south Asia conquests?

So the theme today is taking an actual provable problem and weaponizing it to achieve Authority. And as the symbol of that authority let's not use "high priest" or "ayatollah of e-waste" or "priestatollah", but the Mayan Howler Monkey God.

#WhiteManSplaining Letter 2024: Dear Emerging Markets

February 25, 2024

RE: Basel Convention And OECD Superiority

Dear Emerging Market Tech Sector Buyers:

The purpose of this letter is to explain to you why international laws are drafted by privileged societies purporting to protect and "save" your society, which we have labelled "informal" and "primitive", in order to achieve certain goals which you may not relate to.

1. Protect ourselves from perception of liability for responsibility

2. Shift the burden of proof onto you, the buyer, that what you seek is not stupid externalization of our environmental burdens

3. Protect investments into high-investment machinery and labor-saving shreddiing equipment

4. Retain in our national interests in raw material values.

The first endeavor places a value on our reputation among other WhiteMan Press and Publicity industries which is greater than the value you could ever achieve for creating a critical mass of users necessary to support investments in mass communications in your developing countries. We understand, remotely, that your Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) industry and television stations and satellite infrastructure depends greatly upon the affordability of televisions and phones and other communications devicds. However, the potential for the perception of an allegation that we, as whitemandsplainers, might be externalizing an environmental cost poses risk to our much larger value of ownership, real estate, and control over the system of trade. It is better for us that you stay in your place.

Inspired by LCS 2010 Presentation in Alexandria, VA, introducing

Jim Puckett of BAN and Michael "Fishing as a Boy" Anane

Social Strata Recycling: It's the Recycling Economy Stupid

 While I'm certainly not a fan of communism or any system that concentrates authority in a smaller number of bullyboy hands, I do respect Karl Marx's economic theories. Compound interest rewards those who save - who tend to be those ABLE to save.  If you are born to slaves or paupers, and have no choice but to lift your bucket where it is and lift as you climb, you are extremely unlikely to become self-made in a single generation.

It's the Recycling Economy Stupid.

That said, teaching people that it is hopeless to lift their buckets as they climb is cruel and unusual, historically speaking. The empowerment of resentment - Marx's elixer for proletariat revolution - has little evidence of building wealth in society at large. Most people benefit from a smaller slice of a bigger pie than taking away another person's piece and re-distributing it among sharp elbowed bullies.

Swordfish ë, Part 1: How Modest Mentors Fish for Agents of Conscience, Surrounded by Tilapia

 

Sunrise in Vermont

We had the pleasure of connecting with Agabas Ayudor a few months ago, all thanks to a wonderful activist from the UK who reached out to me. It's funny how these connections form—perhaps Adam Minter wrote about me, or maybe it was the influence of this blog. This blog, while long-winded and dense, serves as a public record that orbits a solar system not centered around privileged individuals obsessed with egos and real estate values. Instead, it focuses on the best and brightest minds emerging from the Tech Sector in rapidly developing "LDC" Emerging Markets.

Within this vast landscape, there exists a rare breed—the 1 in 1,000 who discerns the manipulation of collective guilt management by entities like the Anti Gray Market Alliance/Planned Obsolescence, Big Shred, and the Charitable Industrial Complex. I'd even throw in a few foreign governments seeking to corral non-OECD markets using Basel Convention rules (we might need a catchy nickname for that). These discerning individuals, the "Swordfish," possess the brilliance or transboundary knowledge to comprehend the intricate topics discussed in this blog.

What sets the Swordfish apart is their potential to shape the future positively. Writing for an audience that values conscience over sheer numbers allows for a more profound impact on the environmental solar system. Sometimes, it's tempting to focus on gaining thousands of followers, but the real influence lies in resonating with agents of conscience.