Possessions and Politics: Sorry, But Someone Hates Us

Corporate Skullduggery and Competition in E-Waste

About 25 years ago, I was hanging out in the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) student union cafeteria.  I'd returned from Peace Corps (training contractor in Cameroon), and was headed for an MBA program in Boston.   We had an impassioned conversation with hippy-ish friends about my plans to change the world, fight for the environment "from inside the system".  At least one of my pals was incredulous, said it would be impossible.

I'm still optimistic about my choice, even if most of my contributions are deflecting friendly fire from other environmentalists (ignorantly aimed at African, Latin American, and Asian "geeks of color").  But sometimes things get a little scary.

In the past 4 months:

1) Someone reported us anonymously to the state Fire Marshall for not having an inspected fire system.   Our QA/QC VP is an emergency medical EMT, and has it inspected religiously.  Shrugged it off, but when we asked the Fire Marshall to test our furnace for CO, he wrote the CO report as a "response to complaint" (evidently it counts as complaining on yourself in Vermont when you ask to borrow a CO monoxide meter).

2) Someone reported us to R2 Solutions something on ebay.

3) Someone listed our website as a blacklisted spam sender. - RESOLVED... This is Network Solutions own "report spam" tool, when you get spam in your Netsol mailserver box, do NOT use the Network Solutions own "report spam" button, because if you use the same server to forward your mail, your mailserver gets listed as a spam server.   Network Solutions, hello?? (JUMP TO BOTTOM if you are looking into this MXToolbox issue.)

4) Someone reported us to a major credit agency collector for non-payment of a bogus bill which had been paid (that competitor we know).

5) Someone reported us to the R2 inspector, saying that a maquiladora is export (we have letters stating it is NOT export, and the CRTs that fail testing and are shipped back to the USA are considered our property.  This is the equivalent of telling Sony or Panasonic that if they have new CRTs assembled in Mexico, and one of them fails or breaks, that Sony or Panasonic are "exporting for recycling" even though they bring the rejected tube back to the USA).

There's more, actually, that I can't disclose here.

There is one competitor we know for sure hired a corporate intelligence person, and when I contacted a New England private investigation service (largest) they were "conflicted out" (i.e. already hired by a competitor who listed us as a target).

Organic Recycling: Compost Happens

compost windrow - wikipedia

A 16 year old recycling worker was pronounced dead, and two others unconscious, at a compost operation in Bakersfield California yesterday.

Evidence suggests that when the three went into a drainage ditch, that heavier-than-air gas hydrogen sulfide had gathered there from the decaying compost windrows, and sunk to the lowest point in a ditch.  Employees went into the ditch for some reason, and were overcome by fumes... see Bakersfield Californian report, which interviews company, colleagues, and regulators.  It appears a "Lake Nyos" accident, heavy air pushing out oxygen.

Death from compost would be exceedingly rare, though NIMBY interests generally oppose them as neighbors (due to odors).   Allowing organic matter to gradually decompose seems about as passive a waste recycling activity as one could imagine.  There are no "witches brews" of unnatural electronics circuit toxics involved... though the regulator quoted notes that a ditch is a "confined space".  This is strictly organic recycling danger.

Too early to draw conclusions.  But much of what I've focused on in this blog is how people make law and policy from a bad impression... photos trip a "cognitive risk" lobe in our brain, and environmentalists might forget that mob law and sanctimony (sancti-money) are not something we are immune to.