PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN? Brownwashing Hong Kong Moon Shot, NGO #Ewaste Mistake of Decade

As multiple reporters recited from the press releases from MIT Senseable City and Basel Action Network this year, we heard descriptions of Hong Kong's New Territories, Yuen Long, and Tin Shui Wai in particular, which were familiar to people who went to high school 2-3 decades ago.

"Rice Paddy".  "Primitive".  "Child Labor."

But they missed the largest, most modern E-Waste processing facility ever seen on earth.  This is an example of "brownwashing", the equal and opposite of "greenwashing".

WEEETRF stands for "Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Treatment and Recycling Facility"

MIT's central claim is that the GPS Tracking Devices revealed "Previously Unknown" things about the used electronics trade.   And they found "mistakes made" by R2 and E-Steward certified companies.

But the biggest "previously unknown" is still unreported.

Two years ago, the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department (EPA) launched a "moon shot."  And Basel Action Network didn't just miss it.  THEY HID IT.  #brownwashing



But they had to say something about it... something in small print.  Actually this just describes the $45M of the investment, they didn't actually mention the $550M WEEETRF next door.





How is this NOT THE PBS HEADLINE?  NGO went to huge lengths to hide perhaps the largest e-waste recycling facility on the planet, led everyone to a puny junkyard as "representative of hundreds of similar dumps" (really?) in Hong Kong ... a statement they have to make because there's no significant truck traffic, nothing approximating the volumes BAN says are going there (the Agbogbloshie problem).  But they track stuff to the WEEETRF and to end users of repaired devices in Tin Shui Wai, and when I call them out... they attack ME?

Previously Unknown, or Continuously Unknown?

ED NOTE:  THIS IS NOT A DEVICE GOOD POINT RECYCLING OF VERMONT TOUCHED, EXPORTED, HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH.   We obtained the data from a third party.  BAN made a false statement that we are representing this as some kind of an "alibi" for a device that Vermont had something to do with.   We didn't export anything at all, and the device shown above was managed on the West Coast.

How Little We Recyclers Even Care What Happens

Wow.  What a powerful emotional connection - to no one. Because embargoing trade proves how much you care. Don't exchange with anyone, Bodhisattva.   I thought I'd share the opening salvo of logic from KCTS9's "The Circuit: Tracking America's Electronic Waste".

Sure.  If I send work to the Chicas Bravas Womens Co-op at Retroworks de Mexico, the fact that the electronics crossed the border means I don't care about them.  I don't care about the people I send my children to visit, I don't care about the people whose godson comes live with me for a year.

I don't care about the former Attorney General from Burkina Faso, who I housed for months while a contract was put on his life by President Blaise Compere.  I don't care about the Egyptians, who hosted my family and stayed at my house, because I sold them computers.  I must not care about the investors who are trying to build a $45M state of the art printer recycling factory in Hong Kong, to supply Apple, Sony, and LG with recycled content for new devices.  I surely don't care about the technicians in Ghana who fed and housed me for 3 weeks, or the scrap men at Agbogbloshie who still WhatsApp or call me once a week.

NGO Needle in Haystack #3: Logic of BAN on Interracial Marriage

Re-Release of Paused Blog #3

"Well Robin, you might have a nice biracial marriage.  I'm just worried about your future children, they seem to me to be the victims.  Don't you worry they'll be rejected by both races and won't fit in anywhere?  And the fact your marriage works out doesn't mean that most interracial marriages will". 

My first fiance (1980) was non-white, and I heard that kind of crap where I grew up in the Ozarks.  I vividly remember arguments about the Loving vs. Virginia Supreme Court decision, which ruled Virginia law against interracial marriages unconstitutional. It was completely illogical, driven by ignorance and fear.  There were no facts in the argument against my engagement announcement.  It was completely based on conjecture and speculation.

The NGO crusade against the overseas Tech and Repair Sector, or "Repair and Overhaul" (R and O) not only reminds me of the segregation logic, but also smacks of environmental malpractice.    For several years, people in the Recycling community have said to me:

"Robin, I would prefer that you not export anything for reuse.  Even if you know the people that you are selling displays to - and I don't doubt they are good people - the fact is that I've read 80% of the waste is burned by children under primitive conditions."

Now the people who said the quote at the top about interracial marriage were good, church going people (family).  They really were.  Really, really, good people.  And the people who said the second quote, too, are outstanding environmentalists.  But the fact is that, in the second case, for too long I walked around satisified that people trusted ME to export but believed that most of the export market was bad.  And I knew the SKD markets and RandO was misrepresented.  I did try harder, I'm sure, than others to screen the exports.  But the racist imagery just bugs the hell out of me, and we have to do something about it.  Like ask, "what the hell is MIT's Senseable Media Lab doing hooking up with Basel Action Network??  Didn't they read the Travis Reed Miller thesis?

From the banner atop the NGO's web page (screenshot), we have the 1970s Prince Nico Mbarga white Magnavox TV.  No doubt imported used, originally.  And absolutely no doubt it was imported more than a decade before the photo was taken.  If the NGO planted a GPS tracker in that old white TV today, the chances of it winding up in Agbogbloshie or Hong Kong are zero.

But the propaganda continues, despite the fallacy and illogic.  I could run a photo of the Lovings in their 70s and imply that their aging was a result of the marriage, and it would make as much sense as running a photo of a TV in Agbogbloshie now which was imported in 1977.

Will PBS repeat the mistake it made in Frontline?

@KCTS9 Here's what the NGO should actually be saying

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.