A Separate Peace: E-Waste Activism's Collateral Damage

"Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even death by violence"

For over 10 years, this blog has thoroughly documented the false narrative that "exports" are driven by "waste externalisation" and "avoided costs" rather than by "importers" in the "Tech Sector" of emerging markets.  The blog managed to land a few "swordfish", such as Adam Minter, Reed Miller, Josh Goldstein, Josh Lepawsky, NPR Marketplace, USA Today, and many more Ph.D's and press. 

The false statistic that 80% of used electronics was "sham" recycled has been exposed. - not least importantly by the main NGO itself. Despite trying to rig their last EU GPS tracking study by not affixing GPS to things Africa doesn't want, BAN.org found only 5% export. Despite embarrasing MIT and Oregon PBS with the rigged 2016 GPS tracking study, the NGO E-Stewards racket continues to bring millions of dollars into the lush Seattle offices. Despite questions on the bare faced exploitation of children's photographs in the "third world" dumps, who receive nary a penny from the millions raised, the NGO stands unapologetic. 

"Sodom and Gomorrah", "primitives", "ghoulish", and other halloweeny words remain slurs against the talented valedictorians of the Tech Sector in emerging markets. It was racial profiling by the left. That's what structural racism and implicit racism is all about.

The NGO has largely found they don't have to promote lies as fervently, that OEMs with anti-gray-market designs and "big shred" investors who don't like competing in the Good Enough Market will fund them anyway. Why issue lies today, if the money tree is shedding fruit from the lies you told (about Agbogbloshie, Guiyu, etc) a decade ago? 

Forget the Word E-Waste: World Bank's "Critical Mass of Users"

Here is a link to just one very interesting World Bank metadata paper...

Ghana Country Study: A roadmap for the strategic application of information and communication technology (2011)  

Report prepared for the World Bank by 'Balancing Act'.

It explains something I observed in Cairo.   Before an internet utility wants to invest in providing internet, it requires a "Critical Mass of Users".   You can't build cell phone towers if no one has a phone.   Unless you have the Tennessee Valley Authority (USA project to provide electricity in areas people lacked critical mass) or Marshall Plan, you depend on the "Good Enough Market".   The "GEM" is the definition for basically affordable goods that function well enough.   A 17" CRT monitor sold in Cairo for $21 will be available to 1,000 times more people than a $400 new flat monitor.  It is the 1,000 people who own the $21 CRT monitor which make it possible for private enterprise to run internet cable or sell satellite dishes.  It takes 1,000 people with the $20 used cell phone to make it possible to provide enough cell phone towers that people can talk to each other.

Agbogbloshie (the red dot below) is a tiny neighborhood in a very big city (Accra) which has hospitals and highways and factories and universities and TV towers and radio stations and nearly universal access to cell phones.  The World Bank is concerned with the entirety of the economy below.   And there are scads of newly published Metadata now public at World Bank.   You don't need to narrow your view to Mike Anane, Greenpeace, Jim Puckett, Kyle Wiens and SkyNews images of burning wires.  There is a massive, massive city here, and as Hans Rosling showed us, the news is mostly good.

I'm advising everyone to get outside of the word "e-waste", the very word has a fetish attached to it which I believe has created fear and group-think.  Look at the photos of the Green Advocacy report below.   While the reports show 85-91% reuse of imports to Ghana and Nigeria, better than new product, the report is decorated with photos of "poverty" and "pollution".  It is a mindset around the words "e-waste", even people telling good news feel obligated to take pictures of poverty to prove they were in the same place as the other e-waste reporters.