Evolution of RERA #eWaste Legislation: Spinning H.R. 2791 Obsolescence

Lobbying for the RERA Bill, to bring EU style enforcement to bear on secondary market electronics, keeps shifting parameters.   Here's a blow by blow on why exports of used electronics should (or shouldn't) be banned.   The justifications for both RERA and Interpol enforcement seem to go "obsolete" every 18-24 months... Moore's Law for accusations?  

Summary: H.R.2791 — 113th Congress (2013-2014)

(Note, the dialogue is equally effective in summarizing INTERPOL's Project Eden enforcement)

"The legislation is necessary because 80% of USA e-scrap is exported and dumped.  It was necessary to arrest Joe Benson and more like him.".

- No, actually USITC and MIT show conclusively that most is not exported (otherwise why would we have all those CRT glass piles?)

"We meant, The legislation is necessary because of what IS exported, 75% is simply dumped and recycled in primitive conditions.   It was necessary to arrest Joe Benson and more like him."

- No, actually 85%-93% is reused, not dumped, according to multiple peer reviewed UN studies.

"Ahem.  Thanks to the attention we brought, and arrest of Joe Benson, the situation is greatly improved.  Legislation is needed to continue this improvement."

- No, the studies were on the containers seized during his arrest.  It was literally the accused containers that were found to be 85%-93% reused.  He didn't do what you said.

"While the 80% dumping was exaggerated, 9-15% dumping is still completely unacceptable.  Legislation is needed so Africa will leapfrog into new product..."

- No.  Actually, brand new product imported to Africa was found to fail more often than the used equipment, either due to lightweighting (less durable, cheaper components susceptible to Africa's electric grid fluctuations), or shipment of "new" ESD damaged warranty returns to Africa.

Bullyboy 1: Toxics, Consumption, and Racism

There were 3 seminal works, all published in 1960, which have guided me.

• Silent Spring, Rachael Carlson.
• The Waste Makers, Vance Packard
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Toxics, Consumption, and Racism.   The Story of Stuff, or E-Waste Exports, is “...tria juncta in uno...”



Used electronics recycling policy, as a lens, reveals how liberal occidental policy responds to risks.  The risk of a "toxic", the risk of product obsolescence, and the risk racism.   Particularly of black men taking white women.  Oh, you didn't know white liberals had fears about the third?  How subliminal of me.

These three seminal works have salted the discussion of used electronics regulation.  Racially charged imagery, planned obsolescence money, cognitive risk of "toxics" without borders, are everywhere as we look at the arrests of men like Joe Benson, the seizures of goods purchased by Hamdy Moussa, and the closure of refurbishing factories like PT Imtech in Indonesia.  American society, as much as it has progressed, still betrays a willingness to believe in crimes based on the brown-ness of the accused.

Lagos Nigeria has 6,900,000 households with television.   But when someone photographs a solitary junk TV at a Nigerian dump, we assume it was dumped there from Europe.   So sure, that even when it turns out the trade in used electronics is owned, operated, and successfully steered by African owners, the goods triaged by African technicians and repairmen, in a marketplace echoing the success of Singapore's R&O (repair and overhaul), Japan's Network of Tinkerers, Taiwan and Korean reverse-engineering and good enough markets, NGOs are satisfied to see African businesses enchained rather than question the Story of Stuff assumptions.

Answer:  Not much, you?

The sparse number of scrapped goods in the photos at African dumps (see below fold, under the tire) were probably, statistically, generated in the streets of Lagos, one of the largest cities in the world.   But the story, parrotted by all the western press, is that it came out of a sea container, diverted from a recycling program in the USA or Europe.  We are so sure, in fact, that the US Congress now has a bill (H.R. 2791) introduced to make sale of repairable used electronics to Africans a crime.  Why look at photographic evidence when Annie Leonard has drawn it so simply?  African kids get junk because fat western businessmen don't want to pay to recycle it.

Washington, DC, Jul 24 - U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson (CA-05) and Gene Green (TX-29) today introduced H.R. 2791, the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act (RERA) of 2013. The legislation promotes the U.S. recycling industry by prohibiting the exportation of some electronics whose improper disposal may create environmental, health, or national security risks. 

"We'll start by burning the TVs from London hotel upgrades"

So, to truly connect the dots, Africans like Joe Benson and Hamdy Moussa are motivated not by consumer demand in cities like Cairo and Lagos and Accra, but by an altruistic need cut whitie's recycling bill.  But they don't want to do him such a big favor that they'll take ALL the junk, or any of the most expensive.  They cherry pick out the newest looking TVs and computers, to burn them, despite the fact the new ones have much less copper and gold than the old ones we never see in the African containers filmed by BAN and Greenpeace.

This was the circumstantial case presented in the arrests of Africans during the past year.  A few days ago, I got a chance to do a one-on-one, exclusive interview, with Joseph Benson, the man profiled in Jim Puckett's powerpoint presentation, in London.

Leading up to the meeting with Benson, I did a whirlwind tour of Europe by car, meeting at Interpol offices in Lyon (FR), with Basel Convention staff in Geneva and Fribourg (CH), and flew out of Copenhagen.  I met with four Africans accused publicly by Basel Action Network, Greenpeace, Rupert Murdoch's SkyNet News, and the UK Independent reporter Cahal Milmo, of buying used TVs, sold in Lagos for $100 apiece, to be burned by children for $2 in copper scrap.

Robert Ewell, call Sheriff Heck Tate.  There's a Tom Robinson running loose.