This weekend, USA Today and Burlington Free Press are were supposedly running two stories about my company, and about the Fair Trade Recycling summit. Both stories were to feature interviews and quotes from Jim Puckett, who might say that my company is doing something wrong, even illegal.
A normal delay? Did my blog signal someone to say something to someone? What are the ethics (and smarts) of pre-defending yourself in a blog for a story yet to be published?
I don't ship to these places any more. I wish I could.
My company only exported 8 percent of goods intact last year. That's 92 percent domestic USA processing. And most of the 8 percent intact units went to Mexico, an OECD country, where the manual disassembly is a decent job compared to local mining jobs. What we are actually doing that bothers people is defending people overseas, representing them to be not evil. "Apologists" was Puckett's word. I haven't seen the article yet, but I've seen what Basel Action Network has said about me and my company in print before, and heard him say I was promoting illegal acts to my face last week.
That's not an attack on what Good Point Recycling does. That's an attack on our belief in other people. Most of the intact units exported come from other recyclers out of state, material I buy tested working (including some e-stewards) and broker. We do 2 shipments a year to Africa, and I brag about them, but they are less than a half of a percent of our 13 million pounds.
Still, I'm awake at 4 am wondering what the effect of a BAN accusation will be on my company and its employees. Jim Puckett's quote is that I'm doing something illegal because the Basel Convention is going (in the future) to be amended to make export for repair or recycling illegal in the future. His claim is false on its face value. But when it runs in a headline, my company and employees will certainly be injured and be held to more scrutiny.
My belief that something should remain legal in the present doesn't mean I do it now, or will do it if it's illegal in the future. If his quote runs, where is the line being drawn? I don't ship to the factories in the photos above because Vermont doesn't want me to. But it sucks, they are good companies, and the glass is just winding up in glutted piles. But that's my OPINION, my belief. Jim has said it's illegal. My opinion is a transboundary movement.
A normal delay? Did my blog signal someone to say something to someone? What are the ethics (and smarts) of pre-defending yourself in a blog for a story yet to be published?
I don't ship to these places any more. I wish I could.
My company only exported 8 percent of goods intact last year. That's 92 percent domestic USA processing. And most of the 8 percent intact units went to Mexico, an OECD country, where the manual disassembly is a decent job compared to local mining jobs. What we are actually doing that bothers people is defending people overseas, representing them to be not evil. "Apologists" was Puckett's word. I haven't seen the article yet, but I've seen what Basel Action Network has said about me and my company in print before, and heard him say I was promoting illegal acts to my face last week.
That's not an attack on what Good Point Recycling does. That's an attack on our belief in other people. Most of the intact units exported come from other recyclers out of state, material I buy tested working (including some e-stewards) and broker. We do 2 shipments a year to Africa, and I brag about them, but they are less than a half of a percent of our 13 million pounds.
Still, I'm awake at 4 am wondering what the effect of a BAN accusation will be on my company and its employees. Jim Puckett's quote is that I'm doing something illegal because the Basel Convention is going (in the future) to be amended to make export for repair or recycling illegal in the future. His claim is false on its face value. But when it runs in a headline, my company and employees will certainly be injured and be held to more scrutiny.
My belief that something should remain legal in the present doesn't mean I do it now, or will do it if it's illegal in the future. If his quote runs, where is the line being drawn? I don't ship to the factories in the photos above because Vermont doesn't want me to. But it sucks, they are good companies, and the glass is just winding up in glutted piles. But that's my OPINION, my belief. Jim has said it's illegal. My opinion is a transboundary movement.
