WEALTHY GIRL BUYS NEW CELL PHONE.POOR WOMAN CANNOT AFFORD NEW CELL PHONE.
Free Market: "You two should talk..."
What kinds of reverse marketing would it take to convince the wealthy girl that it's less ethical, or more risky, to sell the phone to the woman, directly or through her family?
What kind of marketing would it take to convince the girl to pay a tax so that the old cell phone is shredded into little bitty pieces of plastic and metal?
What kind of marketing would it take to get a dictator to pass a law, customs seizure, or import ban to keep the poor woman from obtaining the means to tweet and call and socially organize with a cell phone?
Shredding has its place. But the shredder makes money on the girl's tax, not by adding value to the working phone. The new cell phone company hopes to sell an additional cell phone to the poor woman.
This is my industry. The free market is not perfect, there are cases of "junk along for the ride", cases of no infrastructure for recycling after the product is finished; ultimately, the old woman may throw it away (even if it was purchased brand new). There are things that need to be monitored, and fixed, to ensure fair trade recycling. Nevertheless, segregating these women is worse. It is time to end "Recycling Apartheid".
Third party research has now documented a massive exaggeration: 1) of the number of bad units in the trade, 2) of the short useful life of display devices, and 3) of the toxic harm from reuse and recycling. Who is funding this mad men marketing campaign?
Follow the money trail. Who benefits by convincing a nation with declining growth to shred added value, and to convince emerging nations to stop imports of used, value added equipment?
Planned obsolescence in hindsight. New product makers, shredding companies, and dictators. "Green Racism", even if well intentioned, even accidental, is a term we should take steps to avoid. READ YESTERDAY'S E-SCRAP NEWS for the latest "accidental racism" news from Europol. Africans buying used goods in Europe and sending it to their geek cousins at home, are "criminals"... (Below)
