Breakup of Europe's E-Waste Armada? EU WEEE Agenda Shift

Our expectations couldn't be very high.  But whether because of our pressure, or despite it, Europe has blinked.  Bullied for years by Basel Action Network to implement the "Ban Amendment", Europe had shown a pattern of stimulus-response which I had failed to note ten years ago.  So WR3A got less diplomatic in our language, to match the "ghoulish witchy skeleton toxic" language of Basel Action Network and Greenpeace.  Where they claimed "Stewardship" we called out "Africa Boycott".  Where the NGO's called out "waste tourists" we gave voice to "geeks of color".

"Most of the illegal e-waste trade is taking place next door rather than far away in Africa," said Jaco Huisman of the United Nations University, scientific coordinator of the project that included police agency INTERPOL and other partners.

Come again?

That's right.  Europe finally got a clue this summer.  It took awhile, but the Dennis Moore analogy holds.  This redistribution of environmental costs was trickier than thought.

Amazing grace.

European Environmental Advocates really must be "word war weary" at this stage.  Poor Pascal LeRoy and David Higgins couldn't help but bristle at being named personally in blogs to account for the environmental malpractice of the WEEE Guidelines, as implemented.  Basel Action Network is known for developing "tests" which appear to allow trade - like allowing laptops with batteries that show 80% of original charge - a charge gone on many laptops after a few weeks.  Or like allowing SKD factories to buy "fully functional" CRTs with parts removed.  The proof in the pudding was that exactly 0% of their E-Stewards would export a CRT monitor, they were all pounded into toxic rubble following the breakdown of the California Compromise.  But the point of sharing these technical anecdotes is to show the level of obfuscation faced by UNU, UNEP, PACE, StEP and other Euro Acronym Agencies in the Puckett Armada.

They believed the lead ship knew where it was going.  But after 10 years, short of supplies and weary of the "collateral damage" of Africa's Tech Sector, Europe today has blinked.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.



(Soweto South Africa choir)

Accusations of Denial, Hoax, and Racism Haunt Agbogbloshie Ghana

 
Yesterday I mentioned Mr. Jim Puckett's Op Editorial in Resource Recycling - Exporting Deception: The Disturbing Trend of Waste Trade Denial. I will have a chance to respond in Resource Recycling next week, in simpler terms than I traditionally write by blog.  The blog is directed at the best and brightest in our field.

The masthead photo of Agbogbloshie, by Amaia Benito, shows three young men, standing near the side of the Odaw River Lagoon, burning auto harness wire.  A 1990s CRT monitor case, used to carry the wire after burning, implies that there is e-waste, too.

No doubt.  When Wahab and Emmanuel and I interviewed the wire burners (27 at the site) last April, they estimated that 20-50 pieces of electronics arrived there each day.

That is in the largest slum of a city of more than 3 million people.

• The hard working, poor men are not a hoax.
• The "e-waste" is not a hoax.
• The toxics are not a hoax.
• The import of second-hand devices isn't a hoax.

These are specifically what Jim rebuts, and it appears he purposefully misses the point. I have never claimed the Odaw River is clean, or that we should ignore the environment in African cities, nor that Africans import second hand goods.

• What is a hoax is that 400-600 sea containers full of western waste is dumped at the site each month. 
• It is a hoax that the goods that Africans pay to import are quickly dumped 80-90% of the time.
• It is a hoax that the Basel Convention has been amended and the trade in repair is illegal.  
• It is a hoax that Agbogbloshie's a very large dump, much less one of the largest in the world for "ewaste".

And it's a hoax that "e-waste" ruined a pristine, lush, Odaw River. The exaggerations of Agbogbloshie trump the reality.  I objected to the exaggeration of African import crime in an interview with Jim Puckett in 2005, but no one had yet studied his claims of "75%-80% dumping" (and he had then as yet to later deny his claim).  Finding something I didn't say and responding to that, instead of what I did say, will fool some of the people, some of the time.

Extensive peer-reviewed studies and World Bank reports on teledensity in Africa can't simply be labelled "denial" and "associated" with tobacco and climate change skepticism.  And citing news sources that cited your own *claims* hardly matches wits with extensive research by Memorial U, ASU, MIT, and the UN.

In his editorial, Jim Puckett has repeatedly accused me of "ad hominem" attacks.  The claims he makes about Josh Lepawsky of Memorial University, Reed Miller of MIT, and researchers from US International Trade Commission aside... Jim would have a legitimate complaint if I have, as he implies in the article, called him a racist.

If Jim has really misunderstood me, my apologies and condolences.  But as likely he hasn't.