Intercon Sentencing, Defamation, and Charity vs Charity Grudge Match

Chicago's Hall of Mirror Balls

Several people heard a "whoosh" sound while reading the April Fools Day Blog.  The BAN vs ERA of Canada - two recognized tax charities - defamation lawsuit was dropped about the same time.  But ERA's leader Bojan Paduh (a refugee of Bosnia during the 1990s civil war) is someone I got to know as a result of the lawsuit.  His anger at BAN is absolutely seething in a way I have not heard since Brian Brundage sued the NGO 6 years ago. (For April Fool reference, see email from BAN at bottom).

I told Bojan that I had indeed, more than once, considered a defamation lawsuit against BAN. Brian Brundage (like Bojan) had asked if I was interested in joining class action (shared legal cost) approach.  I spoke to an attorney about it in 2012, when Basel Action Network told a Chicago Newspaper that I was "lying through my teeth" and that the "state of the art" reuse and recycling facilities I had visited and eyewitnessed in Asia were a "myth". According to the reporter, BAN warned him against even listening to me, stating I was mentally ill and that everyone in the recycling community knew it.

"Most libel cases are filed by private citizens. There are reasons for that. Private citizens have a much lower bar to hurdle. They have to prove that the statement was factually wrong, that it was published, that it referred to them and damaged their reputation—and that somebody is responsible for it. That the person who made the statements was negligent." - Guy Bergstrom, "To Sue or Not to Sue: Libel"

Now BAN has learned a thing or two from their experience paying attorneys to defend them in defamation and liable lawsuits.  The 2012 attack on me was certainly explicit and personal, not against a company and not a vague "opinion".  They explicitly warned a reporter not to talk to me, and gave reasons why I was not credible.  Because BAN had to take the unusual step of apologizing and retracting their statements, I get contacted a lot for advice from others wanting to sue BAN. But they have learned to be a little more cautious in some cases (like using the term "likely illegal" against ERA, instead of "illegal", as they claimed in 2012).

Instead of suing, I accepted BAN's apology, which was run in the same Chicago Patch newspaper. I was not really satisfied with the apology, because it did not remove the insult or racial profiling I originally objected to. I was not the person being defamed, it was the Tech Sector overseas, the poor people who make a lot more money repairing rich peoples stuff than they can make repairing poor peoples stuff.

Cease and Desist Campaign. Yes. We are "behind it".

To those of you forwarding the emails announcing that importers are "pushing back" on the finger-pointing watchdogs, the answer is yes.  Though the words "behind it" have many meanings.

We stand behind the importers.   The geeks of color in Africa, South America, and Asia who have been labelled "mostly primitive" in their importation of an ill-defined word "e-waste".   The technicians who know more about capacitors than we do, who are asked for "proof" and "evidence" that they are not burning the computers they carefully spec'd out, flew to the EU, Canada and USA, and paid good money for.

"Refurbishing of EEE and the sales of used EEE is an important economic sector (e.g. Alaba market in Lagos). It is a well-organized and  a dynamic  sector that holds the potential for further industrial development. Indirectly, the sector has another important economic role, as it supplies low and middle income households with affordable ICT equipment and other EEE. In the view of the sector’s positive socio-economic performance, all policy measures aiming to improve e-waste management in Nigeria should refrain from undifferentiated banning of  second-hand imports and refurbishing activities and strive for a co-operative approach by including the market and sector associations."  - UNEP Study 2012

"I am very satisfied with the quality of the UNEP studies. I know well the authors and have worked with them and discussed findings with them."  - Jim Puckett, Executive Director, BAN.org  

We have focused on the source of the presumption of guilt, that dirty little secret circulated by Basel Action Network.    Repeated by SVTC and ETBC and Greenpeace.   No doubt believed by many who trust their eyes when Jim Puckett shows them photographs, rather than their heads.

Caught black-handed

With the admission last month that the UNEP studied the containers BAN accused, and found them to be predominantly the reuse equipment the importers claimed it is, BAN has backed away from the Interpol "Project Eden" campaign.  But BAN is completely behind the false information provided to Emile Lundemiller in the Interpol "Organized Crime" E-waste report.

When a city like Lagos has six million households with televisions, it has many environmental problems.  Disposing of its own "ewaste" is one of those problems.   Fair Trade Recycling is an attempt to finance solutions by empowering the technicians who import used equipment with the tools to take back tomorrow's junk, and the methods to recycle it responsibly.

Sign a letter, or sign a petition.   Tell BAN, ETBC, and Greenpeace to "Cease and Desist".

Rumor Mongering: Is Jim Puckett Ousted at BAN?

For the past year, independent studies have piled up overwhelmingly demonstrating what this blog has maintained since 2007.  Basel Action Network does not know what it's talking about, and is making it up as they go along.  Whether they are told politely, or humorously, or angrily that their fiction is hurting the environment and developing nations, they ignore it.

E-Waste Watchdog "Basel Action" Re-Publishes Discredited Data

Or so far they have.   But rumors this month suggest that the Basel Action Network's Board of Directors may finally be listening.   Bad statistics are disappearing from the website.   And in their latest press release, Jim Puckett's name and phone number is missing (Mike Enberg and Sarah Westervelt are listed as the contacts).

Is Puckett just taking a leisurely break following the latest COP (Conference of Parties) at the annual Basel Convention get-together?  Or has the BAN.org board of directors finally started to listen to environmentalists and development professionals who told them their poster child campaign has gone too far?

Grouchy Marxist Defamation or Groucho Marx Defense?

“I have nothing but respect for you -- and not much of that.”
― Groucho Marx

My company, Good Point Recycling, used to charge residents $10-20 per TV, which most people were willing to pay every 10 years when they threw one away.  Here is a 2006 article (Burlington Free Press) praising us for the process and markets we used,..  

Interestingly, it's reposted on the wall of Basel Action Network.  It was posted in 2006', in happier days when BAN called me regularly to help them "certify" Pledge signers (like "Tom", in the article), before their consultants accused me of lying about the factories described in the article, which BAN chose to post on its website.

So, the article goes into detail about the distinction between "unknown" export markets and the use of legitimate export refurbishing factories.  BAN not only posted this article about the distinction, but BAN has also inserted language into their E-Stewards program describing "semiknockdown" factories, with instructions that any parts which may be electively upgraded or replaced must be removed in the USA before the CRT is exported.  

BAN also negotiated for the same terms in our "California Compromise" agreement, which fell flat in 2010.

“Are you going to believe me, or what you see with your own eyes?”
― Groucho Marx

To finesse the obvious differences between factories (like the one in Indonesia, at left) and the dirty recycling in Guiyu China, Jim Puckett, the Chief Executive at BAN, wrote in an Op-Ed piece that the disposal of parts replaced (common in an elective upgrade at the contract manufacturing factories) would be illegal, and speculated that the "discarded parts" would be "poisoning people", ergo "fair trade" was not possible.

In my emails to BAN over the years, I have offered to prove or certify that any electively replaced parts could be shipped for recycling to a place BAN approved, such as Japan or Belgium, which would solve that dilemma.

In responding for BAN, Jim said that he was aware of that option but that he did not want to promote it, because he distrusted and resisted globalization.  He said that no matter how hard we tried, that the nature of "exporting jobs" to poor countries meant exploitation.  In other words, whether or not I found a way that Basel Convention said was legal, that he objected based on his philosophy, that rich people who employ less rich people are exploiting them... something Karl Marx would say.

I told Jim that the "tested working" and "fully functional" and "accidental breakage" would require the same downstream diligence, that trading with poorer people, if inherently unfair, would extend to other trade, including sale of new devices, purchase of new devices, and certainly the mining of metals to make new devices.   Jim actually said he objected to those things too, but they were outside the scope of "waste" and therefore outside of his mission statement in Basle.   He didn't buy my suggestion that the big factories which certified the recycling of breakage, returns, and parts would be very valuable in the countries they were in. In fact, one WR3A member factory became a licensed take-back program for CRTs generated in that country.  If BAN killed them, and the majority of the e-waste disposed of in those countries originated there (See Williams/Kahhat study, referenced below), he'd be making e-waste worse...

So my point here is not to delve back into the specific arguments over the Basel Convention Annex IX, which explicitly says that export for repair is LEGAL... I'm just trying to demonstrate what Donald Summers, the BAN consultant, was referring to when he described "the genuine policy debate at issue" with personal attacks.  The general policy debate was about globalization and Marxist economics, not about whether contract manufacturing (e.g. Foxconn factories which make all IPhones and IPads) were mythical.

In the BAN web page articles above, on BAN's own website, BAN admits these factories are refurbishing.   And BAN negotiated terms for the semiknockdown factories with me, and BAN met some of the factory executives via Skype at E-Scrap 2010.   And BAN chose to support language allowing Manufacturers (OEMs) such as Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Samsung, etc. to continue to use the factories (which take warranty returns, for example) in the language of HR2284, the Responsible Recycling Act.  The factories are NOT MYTHS.

So Basel Action Network obviously knows these factories exist, and is willing to let OEMs use them, and is willing to let E-Steward Recyclers use them if certain parts are removed (like bad capacitors). BAN says nothing if the devices these SKD factories buy are tested working (in which case the parts are removed anyway) and sold to a middleman (but not directly to the factory).  If this is obvious and proven and not disputed, why do so many people I meet think that the genuine policy debate between R2 Certification and E-Stewards standard is about POISONING CHILDREN??????

Or is it about rape, murder, and arson?  (See BAN's depiction of ASU Professor Eric Williams below)...

“Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.”
― Groucho Marx

MYTHS in "E-Waste" Recycling: Chicago Defamation

Myths..  I was just approached yesterday about permission to re-print my Greenwala Editorial, Top Ten Common Myths About E-Waste.   My testimony to the Patch reporter about state of the art recycling in China was countered by BAN representative Don Summers thus:

Summers then criticized Ingenthron and Cade for promoting the "myth that there are all these wonderful high-tech facilities in China,' adding more harsh comments about Ingenthron's character.

In other words, while apologies should be accepted, beer with Obama and all, there remains a central dispute of fact about high tech recycling outside of the USA.  The defamation and character assassination is not against Robin, it's not against Brian, it's not against Willie.  It is against the geeks overseas, whom BAN seems to want to pretend to be mythical beasts.  They describe Africa, China, and Latin America as a kind of Heart of Darkness in recycling, they describe Guiyu's tech district as "E-waste Chernobyl".

See film of the people we are talking about below.

Mark Twain's Anti-Defamation Recipe

Mark Twain:  

"It's not what you don't know; it's the things you know, that are not so, that really get you."

http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/03/mark-twain-weighs-in-on-crt-e-waste.html

Crazy Defense Against A Defamation Suit?

Last week I sent a virtual "postcard" from Dallas, talking about character assassination, in reference to news articles by Chris Paicely of Patch.com.  Paicely did a pretty darn good job of covering the mutual defamation lawsuits between Basel Action Network, and the jilted E-Stewards applicant, Intercon Solutions.

Link to the original Chicago Patch articles here

Reporter Paicely describes the damage suffered by Intercon Solutions, but also gave BAN its due say.  He interviewed me in his final article.  The conclusion was that maybe exports aren't that bad afterall, and if they aren't, that it would be a shame if Intercon had told its clients they never exported.  There isn't very much about actual recycling in the articles... it's about people talking about recycling.

BAN had to respond, and another article appeared:

BAN vs. Intercon:  Watchdog Consultant Calls Export Supporter "A Really Crazy Guy"

Summers sent an email to Patch calling Ingenthron and Cade huge supporters of "dumping on poor people."

... Summers then criticized Ingenthron and Cade for promoting the "myth that there are all these wonderful high-tech facilities in China,' adding more harsh comments about Ingenthron's character.

"They will lie right through their teeth," Summers said. "It's amazing — I've seen it. Robin Ingenthron is known as a really crazy guy — sorry, I don't like dissing folks, but he is a huge outlier."

Summers went on to refer to Ingenthron and Cade as "green-washers," which are companies that falsely portray themselves as environmentally friendly. 

Yes, this is the same Donald Summers who threatened to sue me for libel a year ago ("BAN NGO Threats Lawsuit vs. Vermont #ewaste Blogger" - I was a whole percentage point off in describing E-Stewardship fees), and who found my first April Fools Day Episode of 2010 "scurrilous", "irritating" and "beneath contempt" (Ingenthron Hired By Basel Action Network).

Well, in Donald Summers' defense, he called me personally Monday morning prepared to eat serious crow.  He was doing the fully monty apology.  (It was, after all, a rather curious way to defend your organization when the headline is about DEFAMATION.)  I couldn't help it.  I want to help the guy out.

Huge Outlier

Now, am I crazy, or is this a potential breakthrough...?

Our company's response was to invite Don to visit us in Middlebury, and to speak with E-Stewards he trusts who have been to the "mythical" high tech facilities in China.  If the "big secret factories" don't exist, then get rid of the manufacturer and warranty in HR2284 exemption, I say.  If they do exist, then calling them a myth is the serious libel.  And if they exist, and have been seriously libelled, maybe that's what was driving me crazy.

My hope is that this could be a genuine moment of compromise.


Remember the Geeks of Color, and six billion people ("outliers" of the OECD).

"Because of Gordon Chiu (common export shipper to the Indonesia CRT refurbishing factory for both BAN accussee and BAN donor ), I had to defend the honor or the voiceless importers overseas.  Because of Joseph Benson, the Nigerian arrested for shipping used electronics - which were later found to be 85% good.   I was forced to choose friends I didn't want to choose between."

Open Postcard to E-Waste Watchdog Jim Puckett

 "You Are Here"  -DealeyPlaza_RoomWithaView

Dear BAN,

Two New articles appear this week from Chicago reporter Christopher Paicely, centering on Basel Action Network's role in accusing Intercon Solutions of shipping "toxic e-waste" overseas.

1) Protecting the Earth, Or...
2) Heights Company Builds Case Against Seattle Watchdog
3) Where E-Waste Lands: Stigmas, Laws and Truths (added)

It has come down to a lawsuit.  Why did it come down to this?

For Me:   Because of Gordon Chiu (common export shipper to the Indonesia CRT refurbishing factory for both BAN accussee and BAN donor ), I had to defend the honor or the voiceless importers overseas.  Because of Joseph Benson, the Nigerian arrested for shipping used electronics - which were later found to be 85% good.   I was forced to choose friends I didn't want to choose between.

My hotel has a view of Oswald's Book Depository window.  Dealey Plaza wasn't about character assassination, but I know people who deserve an apology, and if you ever want to find them and express your regrets, you know where to find me.  Character assassination isn't as bad as "poisoning people", you may say.  But character genocide has a different name, when the accusation is based on race and nationality.

Sincerely,

Robin

Oblique Notes: South Park Intercon Basel Action Network Reference

PS, I did not link the video to the South Park - Russell Crowe episode, in part because video slows readers in some of the blog's subscription markets.  Also I'm not sure of SP "fair use" policy, they offer streaming of complete episodes online but not on youtube.

But some people don't know the episode, so below the fold there's a link to the episode and a link to the Russell Crowe song "Fighting Round the World".  Also, some people aren't aware of the Intercon CEO's video, which partly inspired the South Park reference (and any reference to "defamation lawsuit", South Park Studios, and a Hollywood star, gets points in my Ingenthron scorebook).

Read the weekend blog, the defense of Intercon. It's important.  BAN is the one "fighting 'round the world", picking on people in exotic locales.  Brundage is the guy who finally says "might as well be me".

Clip, episode link, lyrics, and Intercon CEO kung fu videos below.

Friend Of The Court: BAN Defamation of Intercon

Below is why I think the case of defamation against Basel Action Network is long overdue.

The defamation case I'd suggest is as follows.  Whether or not Intercon exported hazardous waste, BAN did not know what exactly Intercon supposedly shipped at the time they notified China's EPA.  BAN also knows that China considers used tested working laptops to be hazardous waste.  BAN also knows, that when they broadcast the Chinese determination, that most people will assume the "crime" to be shipping raw unsorted junk, 80% waste, to a yard where children will burn it.  BAN knows about "profiling" the export market - because BAN invented the profile, and makes all their cash from it.

This may be Little Big Horn.  BAN may have finally bitten off more than they can chew.  The Intercon Case looks to me like STRIKE THREE vs. the Basel Action Network

It is Criminal in China to import "second hand" material.  The Chinese Communist Party owns factories which make new goods, and is not shy about enforcing its plans for obsolescence.  If BAN were a local activist group, they could be forgiven for making the assumption that an unknown - working laptop, repairable monitor, or bale of Christmas Tree lights, might be hazardous.  But they play it both ways, as the foremost most knowledgeable, certifying authority, and the well-meaning activist "just asking questions".

BAN shifts nimbly from legal expert, to paid representative, to a hyping watchdog.  In this particular case, of the Chicago Heights recycler, BAN knows that the container may have contained A) working equipment, B) scrap sent to an honorable professional recycler, or C) perhaps hazardous waste for children to burn... but BAN did not know which one when they made their announcement... because the Chinese source (whom they notified to inspect) makes NO distinction between these "second hand" goods.

In this particular case, when BAN informed the Chinese that Intercon had shipped the containerload, the determination by the Chinese official to call the second-hand goods (working, repairable, recyclable, or waste) a "hazardous waste" was a virtual certainty.

At a conference in Washington DC, EPA, Interpol officials met for a special session on "e-Waste" exports.  Jim Puckett was in attendance, and was a speaker.  On the same day, a speaker from the Sino EPA in Hong Kong spoke to the group in English.   He spoke about "green wastes", a listing China was going to propose to improve imports.  He also spoke about China's intention to stop "trans-boundary" movement of containers which change ships in Hong Kong's port.

[The latter was quite disturbing to me... China may be the competent authority for what is defined as "waste" and "hazardous" within China (though it may not, the courts in Hong Kong would allow a suit to bring Department of Commerce in to challenge a "non-commodity" or "non-property" ruling).  But for China to say it can declare a commodity to be "waste" when it is shipped from Party A to Party B, and enters the port of China (Party C) in transit, is an alarming precedent to announce.]

I raised my hand from the audience and was called on to ask a question.  It was a question I had asked Chinese EPA officials in Hong Kong a few years earlier.  I had been told that China identifies ANYTHING "second hand" to be waste.  I asked whether, if I brought a one-week old fully functional tested working laptop with me to China, and decided to give it as a gift to a Chinese host, whether my prior use of the laptop rendered it "waste" and "hazardous waste".  The Chinese Official (I can find his name) said I was right, it's an environmental crime.  That the laptop was second hand, and contained circuit boards, and therefore it would be an illegal transboundary movement in China.

Second-hand is defined as "waste" in China.  So a Chinese "discovery" of second hand equipment may sound  a lot worse than it is.  You just don't know until you get the contents of the container.

BAN's leader Jim Puckett was at this meeting, and he and I have had this discussion in person, and he knows full well that China would identify any tested working equipment as "hazardous waste".  According to his website, he's been an expert in these laws for over a decade.  By contrast, Basel Convention (Annex IX B1110) considers even non-working second-hand equipment to be potentially commodity and not waste (if sent for repair), and the USA considers the intent of the buyer and shipper in the determination.   BAN has its own definition involving removal of parts prior to repair (no one in the world does this, to my knowledge).  The point is that the "determination" is used by BAN in its press release to confuse journalists, just as they confused CBS, PBS, and Terry Gross about the "80%" of the world which generates half of all e-waste on their own.


BAN is an expert on these issues of determination and trade barriers, and yet claims they relied on the inspection of a Chinese authority in making a public announcement about Intercon.  BAN cannot claim not to know that the definition of the Chinese authority included non-hazardous and even working items.  (In fact there is a WTO lawsuit over China's use of environmental labels as a non-tariff trade barrier).   By telling China that Intercon had shipped a container, and that Intercon was a trader in second-hand electronics, BAN had basically set in motion a test which Intercon would fail no matter what the contents of Intercon's containers. If BAN didn't know the contents to start with, it was a reckless act to sick the Chinese enforcer on the container in the first place.  And the signs are that BAN couldn't wait to announce what they were going to announce... they launched at Intercon the same way as they launched at Asian and African businesspeople in the past.

China's interpretation of second-hand makes it a watchdog that bites everybody, criminals, children, and mailmen.  I know that, and BAN knows that.  But the American public is going to believe that there was a criminal involved, based on BAN's "information" that 80% of all USA second hand goods are wastes burned in primitive conditions.

Did BAN defame Intercon?  We know for a fact that BAN is in the defamation business.  It's what they do. They defame people every day... this was Strike 3.   Perhaps this time they defamed the wrong guy.

The Role of Shame in Toothpaste Marketing

This morning, on the road, I brushed my teeth with a travel toothbrush.  I had forgotten my toothpaste.  As I brushed, I could taste the toothpaste from past poor-rinsing.  I wondered how much fluoride I still had in the bristles, and whether the fluoride could be delivered without toothpaste more efficiently (as I brushed).

I'm a recycler.

(warning - this is one of those introverted self-effacing used toothbrush blog entries).

2012: InterCon Takes On Basel Action Network

Word came in Friday's E-Scrap News that Intercon Solutions is suing Basel Action Network - for defamation.

E-Stewards asked to Co-Defame (Herbert Block 1950)

BAN's "E-Steward" business model looks to many people like selling insurance against their own defamation campaign.  Whether Intercon Solutions wins, loses, or settles, we should note that they are not alone.  Unfortunately, most of the people being tarred as "primitives", "polluters", "criminals" and "exporters" don't have the wherewithal to sue Basel Action Network.


Eleven months ago, BAN's accusations vs. Intercon Solutions of Chicago Heights domineered the "e-scrap" and "e-waste" news.   My company had traded in a fair amount of "focus materials" with Intercon - CRT Tubes.   We knew that Intercon was passing the CRT Glass Test, which Basel Action Network agreed with us (in 2004) is the #1 indicator of bad behavior.  People called here to warn me that maybe the CRT tubes were going to China.  It was mathematically ridiculous.

Unfortunately, BAN seemed to have forgotten that lesson.   Rather than do Intercon the courtesy of saying that they passed 80/20 rules for focus material, BAN made it all about a single mysterious container which they photographed and tracked from the Intercon yard to a destination in Hong Kong.   BAN focused on whether a literally anecdotal percentage of Intercon's material was sold to - a person of color.  The story was not about what the material was - cell phones for repair?  laptop batteries?  LCDs? Nor about the capability of the person buying it.   It was about whether the containerload originated at Intercon, and what nationality the buyers were.  The only important thing was whether 1% of something was sold to a person in China.