Heliocentrism Of E-Waste: The Economics Don't Revolve Around Us

The Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth.

Really.  It doesn't.  And the economics of "e-waste" processing doesn't revolve around you, either.



Catholic Pope Urban VIII showed the "value added" by Authority.  The Church of the Inquisition found Galileo "vehemently suspect of heresy". Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest. 

Today, most people know the name of Galileo.  Not many can name Pope Urban 8.  But at the time, I'm sure that was difficult to imagine.

It seemed natural, from a layperson's perspective, to think that the sun did revolve around us, and to take the Church's word for it.  People really didn't have the time or lenses, resources or motivation to test the theory.  If we wanted to know more about the origin of sun and stars, we were sent to an Authority Figure.  The Pope served as Heliocentrism's "Denier in Chief".

The Dominant Organized Religion did a lot of cool things for art and engineering, if not pure science.  Then (as today) people were impressed by the construction of huge cathedrals.  The church charged money to manage your baptism, your marriage, and your parents bodies (or your childrens') at the cemetery or mosuleum... no doubt putting in a good word with the Man Upstairs at the "end of life".

#Ewastetracking Project by MIT and NGO Discovers Analog Television (exists) in Pakistan

According to the opening page of Massachusetts Institute of Technologies Senseability City Lab's expose on second hand electronics, transboundary movement demonstrates likely environmental harm.

A joint project between the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the MIT Senseable City Lab has led to the discovery of previously unknown international electronic waste routes departing from the United States.

Printer, and LCD and CRT monitors were embedded with GPS trackers capable of remotely reporting their location from overseas locations. These trackers were then delivered to recyclers and charities around the country. 65 of the first 200 trackers deilvered as part of the Monitour/e-Trash Transparency Project went offshore, mostly to Asia. 

On-the-ground investigations in Asia by BAN produced a clearer picture of these trade routes. Results of this study can be found here on this site in graphic form and will also be released in a series of reports by BAN. These can be found at: www.ban.org/trash-transparency. 

While legitimate e-waste recycling helps reduce landfill contamination and raw material extraction, the export of hazardous electronic waste is most often illegal trade under the Basel Convention and moreover, the management of toxic electronic waste in the informal sector damages human health and the environment. 

The Monitour/e-Trash Transparency Project demonstrates how relatively new technology can generate unique data needed by civil society, law enforcement and enterprises to better track what until now have been hidden flows. Since the time of our experiment, the UN Organization on Drugs and Crime has confirmed that the Mong Cai border is a primary corridor for e-waste flowing from the US and EU into China, part of an estimated US $3.75 billion market for illegal e-waste. 

Learn more about e-waste tracking here: Video.

- MoniTour E-waste Transparency Project, MIT

"On the ground investigations in Asia by BAN produced a clearer picture of these trade routes."  Really, MIT?  Just how clear?  Analog or high definition?  Seriously, this is from Media Lab of all places?

As I showed last week, the screen shots of the MIT's tracking project are difficult to see at proper resolution; you can't zoom in.  Instead, you must copy the longitude and latitude and paste it into google maps, or rely on whoever is writing written descriptions of the sites on MIT's website.

Then you find places like the Hafeez Computer Center in Faisalabad, Pakistan.  It's near the center of a dense city, blocks away from one of Pakistan's largest universities.  It is a long way from the port.  Screenshot below.

We are writing to MIT to offer to assist them in interpreting several tracking devices locations.  In particular, I'm focusing on CRT devices, which are governed by USA EPA law.  That law does not ban export for reuse, or even export for recycling, but requires that export to be declared and investigated by EPA prior to export.

The reason for EPA's restrictions stem largely from the Basel Action Network (MIT's "joint partner") declarations in 2002 and 2005 that the "vast majority" of CRTs are not recycled, but are dumped overseas to avoid high USA recycling costs. Overseas, BAN announced, the CRTs were most likely going to be beaten by children with hammers to remove "valuable copper".  It is certainly true that CRTs are the most expensive type of electronic waste to recycle, and it's true that any which are diverted for continued use represent an avoided fee.  It's also true that working display devices have been in high demand for reuse and repair markets.  Billions of people owe their "teledensity" (mass media, internet, etc.) to used and rebuilt CRTs sourced from wealthy nations.

Strippers: Drinking Coca Cola With a Blindfold On

Selling Scrap Wire to Chinese (wire) Strippers?

Sometimes there is a really terrific end market which is all blue sky and sunshine.   A true model of fair trade recycling.  But it's impossible to match your supply exactly with the demand... you may have too much of something, and need a backup market.   Or you have too little of something, and cannot ban the buyer from trading with other people whose quality you don't control.

Recycling in a back alley

No one can ever have enough non-ferrous metal to dictate the copper market in China.

No one can keep their scrap copper from ending up in China.  Even if you sell it in the USA, its a sale or two away from Ningbo.

So, if you have clean copper wire, from yokes or degaussing coils (which shows you are demanufacturing TVs and CRT monitors, like a good guy), you are going to have to sell it directly or indirectly into a market that you cannot dictate the terms of.

Even if you visit your copper yoke buyer in Foshan, he may trade your load sideways at the port.  It's a commodity, things get bought and sold, and you don't know into whose hands your scrap non-ferrous will land.

If you sell to China directly, you are taking a risk that even your focus-material-free load is going to wind up unloaded at the same yard, surrounded by junk TVs (which probably were collected from Chinese households), and circuit boards and other focus materials.

If the yard buys from you and ALSO buys from your nasty bad USA competitor, the one you suspect deals in "toxics along for the ride", your sea containers are going to the same address.  If the buyer is then accused of being a nasty, brutish, and primitive wire burning operation, your defense is that you sold "clean commodities".

"Honey.." you say with your one phone call from the Chicago jailhouse.
"I was caught up in a raid of a gambling joint and strip house.  The police arrested EVERYBODY.  But I swear, I swear, I swear to you... I was drinking soda pop.  And playing solitaire.  And I wasn't anywhere even CLOSE to the strippers..."

You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Or you sold copper to the wrong place at the wrong time.

Your copper buyer was (gasp) a broker.  Only a couple of people have enough clean copper to sell directly to a smelter, and even then it may sit in a yard and be resold.   "Brokers" and "traders" are not bad words, some of us are just more honest about the fact that ALL the scrap wire is sold to them if we don't strip the wire ourselves.