Time Out! The Economist Babbage Blog Blows E-Waste Hoax Horn of 2009

Following twitter (via Adam Minter) I ran across an editorial/blog in my favorite periodical, The Economist.  I've linked to some well researched articles in the Economist here in the blog, e.g. about emerging markets and urban development.  I continue to subscribe, buy subscriptions as gifts, and hold The Economist in high regard.

But holy cow... what kind of 2008 garbage is this piece by Editorialist Babbage?  Where Gadgets Go to Die (7/21/2014).  He's repeating statistics disavowed by BAN, referring to Greenpeace's 2009 campaign, and alluding to a vast unknown market for burning computers.  In a Sci/Tech Column, for godsake!  Oh the humanity?


I do encourage followers of the blog to read the article and to comment, and to refer Babbage and Economist SciTech to BAN's retraction of it's overseas dumping "statistics" and recognition of the UNEP reports from a year ago.  Find links at "How the Basel Action Network Saved Africa" posted a year ago last month.

And here's some breaking news about "collateral damage" Hurricane Joe Benson I just received

Just a quick note to let you know that Joe was moved, last Friday, to Maidstone Prison.

Maidstone is an open prison so at least the conditions he is in will be improved.

It should be a lot easier for Juan to get an interview with Joe.

His date of Birth is 15th April 1960.  We still don't have a prison Number but give it a try anyway.

This makes me sick.  The EU is ruining Africa for everybody.

Instead of Reading About E-Waste, Read Something Important

The Price of Precious, by Jeffrey Gettleman, will shock you back to the reality between Tinkerer's Blessing and Curse of Natural Resources.

"The first child soldier pops out of the bush clutching an AK-47 assault rifle..."

The article is about the "wild eastern edge" of the Congo... an area near Bukavu, where I spent my first weeks in Africa in the summer of 1984.   I've been a fan of Gettleman's for several years, ranking him with Fareed Zakaria and Tom Friedman as mainstream reporters who "get it".

It's the mining, stupid.

Nothing I've written below here is as important or as well written, or as insightful as the National Geographic article.  I urge you not to read further.

The article is profoundly sad.  But its also sad to me that I began this trek into reuse and recycling "e-waste" from the very same ground as Gettleman walks, eastern Congo, Rwanda and Uganda border zones... a frequent theme, and digression, in the blog.

more???...