Part 3: Why You Can Be For African Development, Or Against Secondhand Imports, But NOT BOTH

The most important thing in the history of this blog is boring.  Secondary research. Data journalism.

The most important "unique" insights I've been credited with were available to everyone, in plain sight.

- World Bank and IMF Data on electricity demand.

- Digitimes data on display device manufacturing in the 2000s

- @GrahamMytton's 1983 "Mass Communcation in Africa"

Electricity demand (IMF, World Bank) correlates strongly with device ownership and use.

Device ownership and use does NOT correlate as strongly with device production and sales (Digitimes).

Historical device ownership correlates strongly with secondhand device sales.

"But I've seen the photos!" #povertyporn is easier to witness than #datajournalism. That's the problem.

2023 To Kill A Reuse Mockingbird: The Canary Islands E-Waste Black Man's Burden - of Proof

The "Hurricane" Joe Benson Saga continues in Sequel.The press announcements this week were short, but provided a few details... UPDATE: EUROPOL press release with actual photos discloses 750,000 kg - not 3M - were used electronics.

Here's a link to one of the articles on LinkedIn, which I posted.  It has an argument ongoing in the comment and replies section which includes SWEEEP Kuusakoski referencing the BBC Reggie Yates documentary about Agbogbloshie... Kuusakowski's representative ends his scolding reply with the words "I have been to Ghana."

Sir?  Hold. My. Coffee.

It was a sin to kill a mockingbird - in Harper Lee's 1960 novel, or in a 2011 blog about Indonesia... and it's a sin to kill a Canary in 2023.  In case after case, it has been about the burden of proof imposed upon an African tech sector and their family diaspora networks. 

Their burden (like the accused Tom Robinson) is the white man's presumption of guilt.  Ironically, this is not the usual meaning of "White Man's Burden", but the imposition of INTERPOL and Spanish Police to "save Africans from waste" is mind bending. What "proof of reuse" (the defense Canary Island diaspora must present against "presumed waste" communicates about the scales of justice is communicated in the headline - that the Spanish arrested "criminals" rather than "accused" them.

Frederick Douglass 1881 Speech about Abolitionist John Brown

 Finished reading, then watching "The Good Lord Bird" yesterday. 

From the National Park Service museum page for Harper's Ferry... this tribute to John Brown by Frederick Douglass serves as a reminder not to dismiss those who go down fighting for a just cause.

On May 30, 1881, Frederick Douglass delivered a memorable oration on the subject of John Brown at the Fourteenth Anniversary of Storer College. Especially notable was the presence among the platform guests of Andrew Hunter, the District Attorney of Charles Town who had prosecuted Brown and secured his conviction. In his oration, Douglass extolled Brown as a martyr to the cause of liberty, and concluded with the following passages:

Frederick Douglass

"But the question is, Did John Brown fail? He certainly did fail to get out of Harpers Ferry before being beaten down by United States soldiers; he did fail to save his own life, and to lead a liberating army into the mountains of Virginia. But he did not go to Harpers Ferry to save his life.

"The true question is, Did John Brown draw his sword against slavery and thereby lose his life in vain? And to this I answer ten thousand times, No! No man fails, or can fail, who so grandly gives himself and all he has to a righteous cause. No man, who in his hour of extremest need, when on his way to meet an ignominious death, could so forget himself as to stop and kiss a little child, one of the hated race for whom he was about to die, could by any possibility fail.

"Did John Brown fail? Ask Henry A. Wise in whose house less than two years after, a school for the emancipated slaves was taught.

2020 GlobalEwaste Statistics Partnership. Fresh Start? Hmmmm

First, let me apologize if I got off on the wrong foot with Dr. Ruediger Kuehr of United Nations University. We were introduced to one another about 15 years ago, through indirect networks (EPA DC contacts etc). He was presented to me as a more moderate voice on the E-Waste Export debate than Jim Puckett of Basel Action Network, or Ted Smith of Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.


That's kind of typical of official reactions when one hysterical account (BAN.org) that "80% of E-Waste exported 80% of the time, and 80% of that is dumped and lost to the circular economy" is questioned sharply by someone (yours truly) who had a certain degree of credibility at the time. Regulators try to find someone at a median between Robin and The Ayatollah of EWaste, and fund them to get at the truth.

Ruediger's been at the receiving end of research funding for over a decade. And he's filled the role of compromise chef, admirably. A compromise between talented tech sector importers, and the bigots who labelled them "primitive recyclers"...

I haven't finished starting the 2020 "Global E-Waste Statistics Partnership" report, "Global EWaste Monitor 2020" yet.  But in the introduction, this paragraph stood out.

"Only 17.4% of this was officially documented as properly collected and recycled."

I see what you did there. It's a very precise statistic, down to the decimal, about what data you have. But it also continues a backhanded European narrative about the so-called "informal" sector (which I call either the Tech Sector or Scrap Sector according to what is happening).

This is #whitesplaining why the Africans I filmed (below) are not to be trusted. If they were trusted, the charitable industrial complex funding might grind to a halt.

The Thorny Distraction of Environmental Police / Malaysia Rhino Horn

It has been a couple of years now since WR3A's last meeting with INTERPOL in Lyon, France. After our first and second visit to Agbogbloshie, laughingling labelled the "world's largest e-waste dump", INTERPOL officials let me know that "Project Eden" was a misfire. They would sunset it silently.  This is what grown up environmentalists do.

The #ewastehoax launched by Jim Puckett of Seattle almost two decades ago has distracted environmental regulators, and has diluted their enforcement, from much more important concerns.  Like this.

Fifty rhino horns, worth $12M, seized by Malaysian environmental officials in Kuala Lumpur. This is a big news story. Yet it's been distracted from and diluted by Basel Action Network, and there's been no country more so distracted by BAN's war on repair than Malaysia DOE.

Rumors Updated Part 1: Status of the Joe "Hurricane" Benson E-Waste Witchhunt

Finally getting ready to release some major developments in the case of Joseph "Hurricane" Benson, who was first interviewed for THIS BLOG back in 2013.  Unconfirmed rumors are that Benson was released some time ago, on a condition that he not speak to the press.

Benson's Ewaste Export case was profiled a series of blogs, Titled BULLYBOYS.



The term "BULLYBOYS" was Joe Benson's.  His friends, Jacques and Amadou, had contacted me through the blog. They arranged a meetings - before he was sentenced to 5 years in prison by the United Kingdom.

NGO Needle In Haystack Part 2: Methodology is "Base Rate Fallacy" Bingo

Part 2 in response to the Basel Action Network and E-Stewards public disparagement of Hong Kong LCD display refurbishing market.


This is being edited now that the PBS Report is available on live internet. Additions will be highlighted in Yellow, deletions in Gray.  

FAIR USE - Response to Criticism

We do not know exactly what Total Reclaim sent to Hong Kong, or the condition that it was in.  But it sure wasn't a console TV, a microwave, a copy machine, CRT monitor, or printer.

The methodology used by the NGO behind the story appears intended to prop up misinformation about refurbish and repair markets overseas.  The NGOs know that if they put a tracking device in a CRT television, it will wind up domestically recycled.  But by planting it in a smaller device with high repair potential and high reuse demand, they have once again ensured "collateral damage" - this time to their own Top Shelf E-Steward.

It is not an accident that the #trackingewaste demonstration caught one of the best-in-class Recyclers. And it's no mystery what would likely find its way back to the cradle of LCD manufacturing, warranty takeback, refurbishing and repair.  The highest percentage of display device engineers on the planet live in a triangle between Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Kunming, China, and if you know what someone will buy from that area, and what someone would track if they wanted to land there, you can guarantee a BINGO.  The game is rigged to obscure 2 key facts:

- Total Reclaim exported almost nothing, as a percentage of Seattle e-Waste.
- Hong Kong imports next to nothing, as a percentage of intact Seattle e-Waste

Here are 373 Companies which sell PARTS and COMPONENTS of digital displays in the area.

Another Study Reveals Africa's Tech Sector knows its STUFF (#ewastehoax)

The new 2016 Report, published by United Nations University, is 39 pages.  What is remarkable about it is not only that it arrives at almost exactly the same "ewaste" percentages as documented by academics (like Josh Lepawsky of Memorial University, who was savagely mud-slung by a certain NGO director in Seattle last month).  The #ewastehoax around places like Agbogbloshie has been roundly covered by several academics, Basel Secreteriat (the ACTUAL international organization, not the USA charity using its name), and data journalists.

Again, disclaimer - poverty in Africa isn't fake. Toxics in Africa aren't fake.  What was faked was the narrative that EU and USA recycling programs dump waste and are responsible for the poverty or toxics.

What's remarkable about the UNU study is two things.  First, it uses completely different data sets from MIT, Memorial U, US ITC, and data journalism by #ewasterepublic Jacopo Ottaviana, etc... but arrives at the same conclusions.  For example, the chart below shows that less than 1% of Europe's used electronics are exported intact .

Very, very little of Europe's e-waste gets exported intact.  In fact, I interpret the data to say that Europe is being waaay too conservative - the percentages of working and non-obsolete goods is way higher than what is being sent overseas.

And very, very little of the junk in Africa's junkyards (like Agbogbloshie) came directly.  More than 95% of Africa's "ewaste" is its own, devices imported decades ago, used productively for years.

Some individual countries, they say, have higher or lower incidents of transboundary movement which is junk... but that begs the question... if it's an individual country like Burkina Faso, they are getting used electronics from wealthy cities like Accra.  As Lepawsky and Mather already documented, there are used goods traded WITHIN the global "south".

These screenshots shows exactly what I've been telling UNU and StEP since New Orleans in 2006.  The "Stuff" in the "Story of Stuff" gets used for YEARS and is EVENTUALLY discarded and recycled.   What's the first intact piece we photographed in Agbogbloshie?  It was a scrapper's VCR device that Adam Minter and Isaaco Chiaf and Jacopo Ottaviana (#ewasterepublic) stooped to photograph.  Africans imported millions and millions of used VHS players - IN THE 1980s and 1990s!  In Joe Benson's itemized packing lists, there isn't a single VHS player.  BECAUSE AFRICANS NOW WATCH DVD and STREAMING and soon, digital TV broadcasts.  The latter will generate exactly what it did in the USA - waste analog CRTs.  But those aren't being imported anymore to places like TEMA which have already switched to digital.

Golly gee, Colonialists, the evidence is that Africa's Tech Sector knows it's STUFF.

What Joseph Benson said on camera was the truth.  What Mike Anane said on camera was a lie.  Africa's Tech Sector needs reparations.

Ethical Photojournalism or Manufactured Victims, Packaged Nurture?

2011 Crock of *#%^ Agbogbloshie 

Part of me knows the way American Hillbillies were portrayed.  My kin certainly had a chip on their shoulders.  But on the other hand, I do understand that to run a company or a non profit or NGO or government organization, you gotta do some things that you gotta do.

Environmental writer Dave Currey posted a blog this morning which, I think honestly, takes up the same ethical questions about what I call "nurture packaging" or "victim manufacturing".  It's the first time I've read Currey's blog, and I haven't been much deeper into Environmental Investigation Agency (a non-electronics EIA)  that Twitter or Animal Detectives.

But since I've been dishing out a lot of criticism of photojournalism in the #ewastegate hoax, it's time to take pause and recognize a thoughtful, ethical post about how photography drives fundraising, and how ugly the fundraising business is.

Currey sees it.  And in my interviews with StEP, BAN, and R2 staff, they are aware, too.  The business of "solving a problem" or cause-based fundraising is a tricky ethical maneuver.  At a certain point, "ethical professionals" need to send "ethical passionates" out into the field to raise dough.

My retweets of Currey's blog center on the power of photojournalism, respecting the way it leverages exoticism and nurture, but also calling on ethical scrutiny.  The photos sent out by NGO Basel Action Network in 2009 were used to manufacture a "hoax" victim - Africa's "Eden".  Greenpeace also filmed ludicrous claims (by AMA "journalist" cough-cough Mike Anane) that Agbogbloshie was a lush fishing and swimming greenfield before used electronics were imported.

Eight EWaste Facts For 2016

What we know about the "e-waste crisis"?  Every point below has been documented and footnoted in this blog in 2015, with photographic evidence (see photoessay in National Geographic YourShot).  Documenting it takes a lot of time, but I've done it.  In 2016, let's ask anyone who makes a living protesting "e-waste" to refute or respond to the following points.

If you are a data journalist working on the story, there is definitely one here, and it hasn't really been reported.  Most of what's been repeated about "e-waste exports" in the Western press is a hoax.

Resolve to end the Boycott of Geeks of Color ...  Eight Ewaste Facts for 2016