NYT "Recycling Lead for U.S. Car Batteries Is Poisoning People" Stretches the Truth Farther than it Should

From New York Times reporters By Peter S. Goodman, Will Fitzgibbon and Samuel Granados

Following the tradition of Upton Sinclair's 1906 classic gotcha expose "The Jungle", Goodman, Fitzgibbon, and Granados have found a very legitimate way to make environmentalists feel bad about recycled content in auto batteries.

Recycling Lead for U.S. Car Batteries Is Poisoning People

It's much easier for reporters to visit lead recycling operations than it is to visit the only alternative to recycled content lead batteries - which is lead batteries made from mining lead ore and smelting it in a huge primary lead smelter.  The lead in an old car battery is 100% lead. The lead in virgin lead-zinc ore mined from mountains ranges from less than one percent to eight percent lead content.

Consequently (math!) primary lead smelters are about 25% larger / more active than secondary, or recycled, lead smelters. But the production of lead from virgin mining operations - like Perkoa in Burkina Faso, Africa - is really hard to get to, hard to photograph, and stays quiet, not claiming any environmental advantage. 

So if the story was about nutrition, Goodman, Fizgibbon and Granados would be reporting on urban food coops,  not on cannabilism, because it's going to grab the attention of NYTimes readers. That's very typical of journalism, and it has a value in forcing improvement at recycling facilities and urban food cooperatives. We appreciate criticism and the opportunity to improve.

But when not a word or sentence anywhere about the difference between mining and recycling lead acid batteries. Therefore, it is criminally negligent in context.

FACT:  United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates 73% of USA auto batteries are recycled content rather than mined content.

Recycling: In 2019, about 1.2 million tons of secondary lead was produced, an amount equivalent to 73% of apparent domestic consumption. Nearly all secondary lead was recovered from old scrap, mostly lead-acid batteries. Import Sources (2015–18): Refined metal: Canada, 44%; Mexico, 18%; Republic of Korea, 17%; India, 5%; and other, 16%.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2020/mcs2020-lead.pdf

That's a lot of content right there in that paragraph.  It leaves a lot of mental gymnastics to do to tie automobile scrap generated in Africa, removed in African scrap markets, smelted in African secondary smelters, and sold on the London Metals Exchange as metal, to responsibility to USA car manufacturers.  #DataJournalism called, they want their focus back.

Recycling Is Not a "LIE": Part 3. Alexander Clapp says I'm an Expert?

 

Waste Wars: A Journey Through the World of Globalized Trash

Forthcoming from Little, Brown & Company

Try out this logic.  

"Health Care Is a LIE, because everyone receiving health care will eventually die".

So I just found out that Alexander Clapp, author of the NYTimes Opinion editorial saying that Recycling Is a Lie, quotes me personally as an expert. Page 135. 

Yet, he does not respond to my direct messages, offers to dialogue, or follows (Linkedin, BlueSky, XTwitter)... So I'm following his posts and will buy a used copy of his book when it is available, but this "Health Care Is a Lie" logic is patently false.  

The 2006 NIH Report by Charles Schmidt, where the misleading quote is pulled from, was based on a trip I made to Asia 20 years ago with Total Reclaim of Seattle president Craig Lorch, and native (2nd generation) Mandarin speaker Lin King of WR3A.org and University of California (recycling program manager).  I had not been to Africa since 1987, and was trying to explain to Mr. Schmidt that the HUGE CONTRACT MANUFACTURERS IN ASIA - SUBCONTRACTORS FOR DELL, HP, ETC. were certainly not importing 80% waste. When he asked about Africa importers, I knew that they were not running 50+ huge factories with up to 1500 employees, 3 shifts a day, seven days per week.  And during that interview, I was also trying to remain friends with Mr. Jim Puckett who was making the (false) claim that 80% of used electronics trade violated the Basel Convention.

AFTER this interview with NIH Schmidt, the following occured.

1. I went to visit our buyers in Africa - with my whole family - and learned that they were Tech Sector professionals who knew WAY more about the electronics they were purchasing than USA recyclers did.

2. I sent multiple emails to the 2006 study author between 2006 (when I complained about the coverage even then) leading right up to 2013, when I invited him to attend the Middlebury Fair Trade Recycling Summit. See email to the author at bottom, with the list of speakers and experts meeting to discuss the "e-waste hoax" BAN had by that time created.  

3. 2013 was the year Jim Puckett of BAN disavowed his own claims in the 2006 Charles Schmidt NIH study - actually claiming he had never ever made the 80% illegal export claims.

In a sample email to Schmidt copied above, I was imploring him to update the 2006 study I'm quoted from, and he submitted my offer to his editor at NIH, who in 2011 turned it down.  Instead, Adam Minter that year visited multiple importers (and domestic Chinese e-waste buyers) for his book, Junkyard Planet.  Which like his second book, Secondhand, interviewed me and our WR3A members directly and on multiple occasions visited them.  

Shadenfreude or Unbehagens Wohlstand? Finger Lickin Guilt

"It's finger-lickin' guilt"

The German phrase for the guilty pleasure of rubbernecking - observing another person's tragedy with chilly over-interest - is now part of the American lexicon.

Schadenfreude is somehow connected to "poverty porn".  Sure, I've always said their is a genuine "nurture" instinct at play, an innocence in wanting to help.  The Charitable Industrial Complex is a crime committed out of love.  Or self love (and love itself can  be an uncomfortable mixture of the two - right OJ?).  We care about  the poor, and we love the part of us, and the part of others, that cares about them.  See the Narcissus blog...

But is there a similar good German phrase for "discomfort with other peoples increasing affluence"?  It's different from jealousy (which is the discomfort with affluence or conspicuous consumption, but relegated to those who don't enjoy the same - the "have nots").

People we have always thought of as "poor" start to resemble - well... - US.  And today's NYT article wants us to see that as a bad thing.

Are Warnings about Saturated Fat Full of Baloney?

From today's Wall Street Journal, a history of how we all got duped by bad science.  If you can convince people that something normal - like eating bacon and eggs for breakfast - is an important (cognitive) risk, you can launch a multi-billion dollar industry to replace it.  NYT also reports that the fat is not in the fat.

WSJ:  "Butter and lard had long been staples of the American pantry until Crisco, introduced in 1911, became the first vegetable-based fat to win wide acceptance in U.S. kitchens. Then came margarines made from vegetable oil and then just plain vegetable oil in bottles.... All of these got a boost from the American Heart Association—which Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crisco oil, coincidentally helped launch as a national organization."

NYT:  “My take on this would be that it’s not saturated fat that we should worry about” in our diets, said Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury, the lead author of the new study and a cardiovascular epidemiologist in the department of public health and primary care at Cambridge University..

The economical leveraging of our concerns about human health should not make us cynical about "accepted science".   In comments to the WSJ article, there are people griping about climate change reporting.   It would be too easy to jump to the cynical conclusion that doing whatever we want will turn out for the best.

However, the resulting cynicism also shows the cruel danger of supporting a marketing hoax.  It can create collateral damage to agents of conscience in other fields.  If the American Heart Association is full of baloney, people may shrug off exercise and calorie counting, which are still shown to be very important to our health.  

My conclusion:  Do No Harm.   Apply scientific method.  What the "e-waste" hoax has done to repair and reuse is nothing new...  Big Corn or Big Shred or Big Brother are willing to dish out baloney.  Watch what you consume.

The history shows a firm link between human cognitive risk assessment and industry marketing thereto.  - Robin Ingenthron

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

Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit Update

Earth Week Event:  Fair Trade Recycling (of "e-Waste") Summit in Vermont

copyright robin ingenthron

There is considerable interest in our April 16 Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit, a free conference paid for by Middlebury College, Memorial University, and WR3A.   In fact, we are out of seats already.

The good news is that the Summit will be broadcast via Live Streaming throughout the day.  We are preparing a number of videos to fill the gaps between sessions.

I'll post a list of speakers and presenters and panelists this week.  We are immensely honored at the number of Guests who have chosen to attend in person rather than via the Skype options offered to the presenters.

Fair Trade Recycling Summit Nations Represented (confirmed participation to date)

• Angola * Burkina Faso * Canada * China * Egypt * Holland  * Indonesia
• Malaysia * Mexico *  Peru *  Switzerland * USA

more

NYT: Seeing People for what they Can Do

... not just for what they cannot do. 

Today's New York Times has a refreshing take on the story of slums.   It's a very different perspective than the Bloomberg story on cotton farming in Burkina Faso.  "In One Slum, Misery, Work, Politics, and Hope", by Jim Yardley, is worth the read.

In the labyrinthine slum known as Dharavi are 60,000 structures, many of them shanties, and as many as one million people living and working on a triangle of land barely two-thirds the size of Central Park in Manhattan. Dharavi is one of the world’s most infamous slums, a cliché of Indian misery. It is also a churning hive of workshops with an annual economic output estimated to be $600 million to more than $1 billion.