Firehose 8: Leyla Acaroglu and "Environmental Folklore"

"There's no denying..."  Below are tweets sent last night from Australia, where the New York Times opinion author wrote yesterday's column about how cell phones and electronics are exported for primitive burning.  I tried to reason (and am still trying)...

Leyla Acaroglu ‏@EcoInnovators2h@AdamMinter There is no denying that the US exports and in cases dumps waste on other countries. Just one example http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/12/01/e-waste-investigation-nabs-green-recycler-eri …DetailsLeyla Acaroglu ‏@EcoInnovators2h@AdamMinter Even what is 'donated' eventually becomes a legacy that has to be dealt with. Read what the UN says http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=612&ArticleID=6471&t=long …

Here's the fascinating part... While she appeared to deflect the studies showing that the E-Waste Myths had exaggerated the dumping by tenfold, and even sent links to the UN studies back to me (and Adam M), and sent links from the "dark year" of 2010 which is when the studies were commissioned... her TED talk is actually - fantastically - titled "Question what you think".  It's all about using science and lifecycle to define sustainability, and to beware "environmental myths".

Leyla Acaroglu's TED Talk is called "Environmental Folklore".  It's about using Lifecycle analysis to determine the real environmental costs of our decisions.   She talks about the scatalogical focus of "end of life", which is the same theme/mantra of this blog.  She should be open to the idea that the carbon, energy, and environmental cost of a display device are mostly embodied from before it's even sold or initially used, and therefore (like UNEP) agree that reusing it makes more sense than shredding it.  But she says "even what is donated eventually becomes a legacy..."

In the TED talk on youtube, I agree with her thinking about plastic vs. paper.  What we need to do is get her to apply the same "looking at the entire system" to assess CRT reuse vs. CRT shredding, the "green myths".

"Before you listen to this little guy in your head..., you should stop and question what you think you know". 

She and I completely agree on the Lifecycle.  The problem is, that when she writes about "e-waste" and cell phones, she's letting the Little Green Gal do all her talking.   Greenpeace and BAN are telling little green lies, and it's not turning out well for Technicians of Color.

Myths, Folklore, Hoaxes and little green lies

FIREHOSE: New York Times Opinion Page (Leyla Acaroglu)

From today's NYT... An Opinion piece in support of the type of "export police" I've been writing about this month, in the Firehose Series.

"In far-flung, mostly impoverished places like Agbogbloshie, Ghana; Delhi, India; and Guiyu, China, children pile e-waste into giant mountains and burn it so they can extract the metals — copper wires, gold and silver threads — inside, which they sell to recycling merchants for only a few dollars. In India, young boys smash computer batteries with mallets to recover cadmium, toxic flecks of which cover their hands and feet as they work. Women spend their days bent over baths of hot lead, “cooking” circuit boards so they can remove slivers of gold inside. Greenpeace, the Basel Action Network and others have posted YouTube videos of young children inhaling the smoke that rises from burned phone casings as they identify and separate different kinds of plastics for recyclers. It is hard to imagine that good health is a by-product of their unregulated industry."


Smashing batteries to recover cadmium?  Descriptions of the same Youtube videos which have been discredited?  There is no new information in the column at all.  A lot of imagery of harsh conditions, poverty, victimization.  Who wrote the article?

Leyla Acaroglu is a sustainability strategist based in Melbourne, Australia.

Here are pictures of the people who buy and recycle cell phones.  Some of these pictures will look familiar.  Most will not.   I got these from a rare blog kept by David Kousemaker (dkousemaker), TechTravels Blog, a mostly photo blog (much less wordy) about used technology.  But unlike BAN and Greenpeace's photography, it's not political, and he isn't soliciting your "charitable donation".

http://techtravels.wordpress.com/shenzhen-phone-recycling-1/
http://techtravels.wordpress.com/shenzhen-phone-recycling-2/
http://techtravels.wordpress.com/shenzhen-phone-recycling-3/
http://techtravels.wordpress.com/shenzhen-phone-recycling-4/

I've put a handful of these photos in small scale below (fair use, and Kouserman actually allows non commercial commons use, see bottom).

Leyla, if you want to talk about sustainability in development, give me a ring.  I chose repair and refurbishing because the "Network of Tinkerers" is a model for development which offers an alternative from the curse of natural resources (and foreign aid, which appears to have the same effect as oil and diamonds, creating a Darwinistic government class that provides the greatest rewards to the sharpest elbows).  Tinkerers, networkers, technicians, fixers, repairers, geeks... those are the people who turn discarded tech into affordable access.  We called it "Yankee Ingenuity" in the Northeast.   There is no better way for a smart kid without connections to make $300 per day than by fixing and salvaging.

Read the other blogs here, Leyla, and you'll find that BAN and Greenpeace are filming the city dumps at major cities, and the used imports are mostly not the same stuff people throw away here after using it for 20 years.  Five reports show 9%, 10%, 13%, 15% of the imports are waste, which is actually less than new "affordable" product imported into places like Africa or sold in shops in China.  The free market is not as bad as you've described.  And no one can afford to pay for scrap to be shipped across the ocean just to dump it, something of value must be there for the ride (and it isn't batteries smashed for cadmium... who told you that?).

In May, 2011, I channeled a book from 1960.   No, not Vance Packard's "The Waste Makers", about planned obsolescence.   No, not Rachael Louise Carlson's "Silent Spring", about the invisible toxics from our heavy industry, and their heavy poisonous toll.

In "E-Waste Bloggers Play Atticus Finch", I referenced Harper Lee's dramatic novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird".   Ms. Lee, who has recently been in the news over copyright and author control, told the simple story of her native Monroeville, Alabama.

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird