Documentary "Blame Game" Covers More Angles at Agbogbloshie

Directors Juan Solera and Albert Julia's English-language documentary, Blame Game, can now be viewed on Amazon Prime.  The documentary was aired at the 2019 E-Scrap Conference in Orlando, Florida, and Good Point Recycling of Vermont sponsored the travel costs for the directors (from Spain), on behalf of Fair Trade Recycling.

Short clip (Teaser) available on Vimeo.  

Link to full documentary on Amazon Prime:
https://www.amazon.com/Blame-Game-Juan-Solera/dp/B07NC532NF/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Blame+Game&qid=1571060738&s=instant-video&sr=1-1

The Event was well attended by E-Scrap standards.  Jim Puckett of Basel Action Network opened questions from the audience, stating it was the best film he'd seen on the subject.  He then went on --- very curiously -- to ask why the filmmakers had not given more air time to proponents of the Basel Convention?

The curious insinuation was that he had not been interviewed.  But he had been. The directors had honored his own demand not to include his interview, perhaps because he had made a false claim on camera.

BAN's Jim Puckett vs. "Hurricane" Joe Benson

Imprisoned based on fake statistic

Thanks to all for the polite applause and pats on the back as I profile the arrest and imprisonment of an African used goods trader from the safety of my Vermont office.

Many people have told me how "brave" I am to risk offending the Senator Joe McCarthy of E-Waste.

" Never has BAN ever stated that 80% of US e-waste is exported." From NPR.org / fair use.   

One year ago, "Hurricane" Joseph Benson of BJ Electronics was involved in our efforts to get Puckett to actively withdraw his accusations against African techs.  I travelled to Interpol, met Benson in London, and engaged with Puckett (via BloombergView) over Basel Action Network's silence about it's "80%" statistic being discredited in major UN funded studies in Nigeria. Jim Puckett tried to spin the story, claiming credit for what he called the vast improvement in standards of imports to Nigeria.

Outrageous.  The study was the same containers seized from Benson's arrest!  Puckett was acknowledging the quality of the studies funded by Basel Convention Secretariat, but implying the quality of the loads was a result of the goods seizure.  Rarely does an expert get caught so bloody red handed.

Unfortunately for Joe Benson, trade of used goods in Africa has already been tried and convicted in the press, based on BAN and Greenpeace's accidental racial profiling of allegedly "primitive" electronics repairers.

Portions of the Hurricane Joe Benson blog, with quotes from Puckett and from the 2011 report on the findings of Benson and others sea containers are reposted below the lyrics of Bob Dylan's song Hurricane.  It includes a link to an academic article reportedly submitted in Benson's trial, from University of Northampton UK, which quotes Puckett estimating only 25% of exports to Nigeria are actually reused...

Recall also, a year ago, that Puckett and BAN refused to come clean about their "statistics" on e-waste.  "Never has BAN ever said..." etc.  Recall as well that Puckett used articles mentioning Joseph Benson of BJ Electronics by name in his powerpoint presentations, taking credit for the crackdown.

Bottom line:  Africa has enough REAL problems, needing real solutions.  They don't need us to manufacture scandals for them.  (See another old blog chestnut, "The finite world", riffing on Economist Paul Krugman).

"Hurricane" Rubin Carter, memorialized in Bob Dylan's song, passed away two months ago, April 20, by the way.

My point is that I told Jim Puckett, to his face at E-Scrap in the fall, that his stats about Africa were resulting in an Innocent Man's arrest and imprisonment.  Jim Puckett said to me that Joe Benson was "collateral damage".  That's the best he could do.   And now Benson is in prison.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder 'one' guess who testified
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand ? 
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land 
Where justice is a game.

Bullyboy II: Meet an Innocent Man HR2284

At the Las Vegas E-Waste Summit last November, Jim Puckett of BAN and I each gave presentations on the export of used electronics for reuse and repair.  Jim's powerpoint had a slide showing this UK Independent journalist's (Cahal Milmo) 2009 article on the arrest of "Nigerian Exporters".

Milmo took a 2013 victory lap recently, alluding to his role in the 2009 seizures of Benson's electronics.

"Owners and employees of a string of waste disposal companies have been fined more than £200,000 following Britain's largest investigation into the illegal export of toxic dumped electronics to the developing world.

"The eight men, whose firm’s operated across the country, were found to have been at the heart of a lucrative trade which sends tonnes of waste computers and other consumer durables to west Africa and Asia every year to be stripped of valuable metals in grim conditions, often by children.

"One of the company owners, Joseph Benson, whose BJ Electronics toured civic waste sites picking up electronic goods to be sent illegally to Nigeria from east London, was convicted following an investigation by The Independent, Sky News and Greenpeace."

Puckett (a former employee of Greenpeace in Europe) showed the article in his slide show between photos of kids at dumps.   I raised my hand and asked him why he was applauding the arrest of Joseph Benson, when the UNEP found Benson's containers to be 91% working?  Puckett said "I don't know that name".   I referred him to his own slide.  And reminded him afterwards.  People have names.

The Independent and Sky News coverage would have been ludicrous, except for the pictures of children burning scrap in horrid conditions. The NGOs said that "80%" of the imports of used electronics in Africa were dumped, burned by "scrap boy" children, in primitive circumstances.  (Sky News is owned by Rupert Murdoch... they cut a copper wire in a TV, gave it to Benson, and tracked it to Lagos, then bought it for 70 British pounds, and showed the cut wire.  My 11 year old could fix that TV.  If they think there is $107 in copper in a junk TV, have I got a deal for them).  (Correction:  I confused the Sky News TV with the BBC Track My Trash TV.  Sky News removed a part and bought the TV back for 40 British Pounds, about $62.  BBC cut the wire and bought their TV back in Lagos for 70 Pounds or $107).

The UNEP study showed that most of what the kids were burning was sourced from waste generated in Lagos.  Nigeria had 6,900,000 households with tellies in 2007 (World Bank).  The used electronics trade was already decades old, and was responsible for the development of communications infrastructure in Africa.   70% of all purchase of electronics in Nigeria, a nation of 170M, are used goods sold by people like Benson.

My first meeting with Joe Benson (Environmental Malpractice 6.1) in London was just a few days ago.  Unlike other factories and traders I've written about, I had never met, never sold to, bought from, or spoken with Benson.  This was a cold call.

Like the character Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird, Benson was at first awkward and not very talkative.   Like Robinson, Benson seemed overwhelmed by the system of accusations leading to seizures and fines, without assessment of the veracity of the allegation.  Another recycler, clubbed to death in 2010.

My pidgin English is very very rusty, but I opened with a few words in pidgin just to hopefully make Benson and his three friends know I was a different kind of environmentalist.  That got a chuckle, but fell a bit flat, and we resumed the conversation in Queens English.