@RecyHub: The Case for Reformed Electronics Recycling Exports

  White's move...  


In the comments section on Sunday, reps from @RecyHub posted the following questions about the Fair Trade Recycling Model.  As a reminder, WR3A/FTR encourages export of used electronics to Africa, hand picked by Africans, under defined purchase orders and contracts, to meet the desire and needs of African cities.

EU RecyHub writes:

There are some issues in my mind that I think are not cleared out by your model:

- Child labour. In Agbogbloshie there are kids working with the e-waste, burning cables. Somehow, they should be considered in a model that takes into account human development, not only economical development. 

- Non-recyclable parts. Not 100% of the components are recyclable. There are hazardous parts that need to be removed and treated separately, and there are plastics that don't have any secondary market value. Those parts will be travelling together with the reusable electronics. 

How do you approach these two issues?

First, it is now very well established that the junk show in primitive scrap yards is primarily generated by Africa's cities themselves.   The two problems - child labor and difficult-to-manage components - are products of the emerging nations themselves.   A trade ban does nothing to address these problems.

Second, and on the contrary, the WR3A / fair trade recycling model uses the value of the goods to create incentives to address these problems. Instead of paying $7,000 for a containerload of televisions, the African trader could pay just $4,000 in return for a contract to eliminate child labor, recycle the plastic, etc.

This is the only model which creates $3k (or $4k, $5k, $7k) to fund proper recycling. African traders import from wealthy countries because the scrap is so much higher in (reuse) value, and OECD nations are foolish to shred that value. Keeping it out of the hands of African techs is a lose-lose proposition.

 Check. 

Fact Check on E-Waste Recycling: 11 POINTS

Do exports of electronics need to be handled with care?  Yes. Should electronics recyclers be certified?  Absolutely.   Professional recycling companies are proud to have the bar raised, and for standards for reuse and recycling to be level.  With that said, should the Green-Thompson Bill banning "ewaste exports" be passed?  Here are the facts.

1.  Are 80% of USA's "EWASTE" exported to non-OECD Nations?

Non-OECD nations represent 83% of the world population.  While there has never been a source for the "80%" export statistic, it is logical that 83% of the buyers in the world could represent 80% of the market for USA goods.

2.  Are most USA electronics scrapped in primitive recycling yards, creating pollution?

No.  The largest importers by volume of items like computer monitors and desktops are the contract manufacturing factories which originally made them.  Most of these are located in, or owned by, Taiwan based companies such as Foxconn, Proview, Wistron, and BenQ.   They take back items under warranty for repair, but also take back non-warranty items if they can be refurbished for reuse.  The other big overseas markets are for raw materials - plastic, copper, aluminum, zinc, lead, steel, etc.  Those are the same markets for everyone, and whether the used electronics are shredded first, or not, does not change the recycling outcome.

3.  Do most of the European and USA electronics shipped to Africa wind up burned in primitive conditions?

No.  In depth research provides concrete evidence that 85% of the exports to Ghana (the site filmed by BAN.org and Greenpeace) are reused.  Only 30% of the electronics imported to Ghana are brand new.   African buyers station inspectors to carefully screen items they are buying in the country of export in order to make sure shipping costs (80% of the cost of the item) are not spent on junk.  The percentage of product not reused is similar to the percentage of store returns at Wal-Mart in the USA.


4.  Are e-Waste reuse and recycling operations a significant source of pollution?

No.   By far most of the pollution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America comes from the mining of raw materials to make brand new electronics.  In comparison, the percentage of toxics released by repair and elective upgrades is practically not even measurable.

5.  Will a ban on e-Waste exports help poor people?

No.  The proposed bans on e-waste exports will harm poor people.  The emerging democracies in Africa and the Middle East have made connections via internet.  The cost of new display devices (monitors) is more than a month's pay, out of reach for most Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians, etc.  The alternatives to recycling jobs are mining for metals like tin, tantalum, and tungsten in rain forests, and mining for lead in Kabwe.  No reputable professional has ever said reuse or recycling is worse than mining... even those who would ban recycling concede the mining in Africa and China is far worse.

6.  Do a significant number of USA recyclers mix "toxic along for the ride" with exports?

According to interviews with importers and technicians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, bans on export in California, Oregon and Washington resulted in a "sellers market" for used electronics, and quality has decreased whenever good people refuse to trade or ban trade with geeks in developing markets.  While the quality of loads went down, the cost of shipping (especially to South America and Africa) generally makes it impossible to ship more than 30% junk.

7.  Where do the electronics shown in photos at dumps like Guiyu and Agbogbloshie come from?

By all accounts, most of the scrap shown in primitive recycling yards in China comes from China, and most of the scrap in the dumps in Ghana has been used productively for years in Ghana.  Photos by organizations like Greenpeace clearly show (in their own footage) nice black televisions taken out of sea containers, and show very old white computers, in small numbers, at the dump.  Greenpeace commits fraud if they say that the sea containers are unloaded at Abbogbloshie, BAN commits fraud if they say that sea containers sent to China are unloaded at Guiyu.

8.  Is modern shredding technology superior to hand disassembly?

Hand dis-assembly is certainly superior to shredding by machine.  Hand disassembly recovers products like batteries, rare earth magnets, chips, reuseable parts, and can separate high grade copper from low grade.   Burning wires is bad but is actually rare, most of the wires shown in Africa have been sorted for reuse, and most of the wires in China are graded in modern chopping and washing systems.   Shredding technology is only used in nations who cannot find labor to hand disassemble.  Hand disassembly creates more value and more jobs and more affordable computers.

9.  What is the alternative to legislation banning "e-Waste" exports?

Fair Trade Recycling agreements require exporters to clearly label and identify electronics shipped (not simply to load junk into a container), and to have the buyer agree on a price which demonstrates the Cost of Goods Sold cannot support simple scrap dumping.  The exporters must allow importers to hold back a portion of payment (e.g. 20%) to use to cover the cost of properly recycling bad units and parts by hand.

10.  Do reused and refurbished goods produce bad jobs and pollution?

The only source which makes this claim, BAN.org, receives nearly 100% of its funding from Original Equipment Manufacturers who are opposed to secondary markets (like an Auto Manufacturer contributing to a campaign against used car sales), or high capital shredding companies which have trouble competing with reuse and hand-dis-assembly operations.  Under the E-Steward label, companies which agree not to deal with refurbishers overseas pay thousands of dollars and a percent of their gross revenues to the non-profits which use pictures of African and Asian children to market against reuse and hand disassembly.

Not a penny of the donations goes to the children in the photos.  Their images are used to market a campaign to take their parents jobs away.

11.  Does International Law ban the export of computers for repair, refurbishing, and reuse?

No.  International law (Basel Convention) explicitly says these activities are not waste treatment.  Laws have been proposed to outlaw the reuse export practices, but have not been passed.

This is not a renunciation of efforts to improve recycling.  Certification and improvement of reuse and recycling exports is good. But most African, Latino, and Asian buyers do not resemble the exaggerated pictures distributed by some non-profits.   Please look into Fair Trade Recycling, and Responsible Recyclers practices.  It makes a lot more sense than export bans and subsidies to destroy working computers.

Plan Do Check Act

Poster Child, Toxic E-waste

At the California Sustainability Directors conference last summer, I was pinch hitting as a representative of R2 - Responsible Recyclers standards for "e-waste" recycling.  I was hastily invited by someone as a counterweight to what was originally a purely E-Stewards presentation on certification.

When certifications compete, it's a bit like warring doctors or feuding priests.   Both certifications were set up less than 18 months ago, neither has really been tested in the field.  Either may have unintended consequences.  It's only the second inning.

Both certifications are overseen by professional auditing bodies - ANAB and ANSI, the same which authenticate ISO, RIOS, and other standards and practices.  These bodies are designed to check on whether the standard is independently verifiable, legal, and can be implmented via PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act.  The standards are so similar in many respects that the auditors can use the same pages of verification interchangeably to ensure that the companies applying for the standards meet the same environmental, health and safety laws.   None of the standards have an in-house auditor playing Catcher in the Rye, catching children from falling into toxic fields.  PDCA is better than nothing, but it is weaker than a civil law contract.

How then do the certification advocates differentiate between them?  Marketing.

The groups which are invested in the term "e-waste crisis", the ones who would use prohibition in trade with techs of color as a solution, are using drama, guilt, innuendo and poster children to attack the other groups best efforts to promote best practices.   They treat companies seeking R2 as the new evil exporters.   Seeking to do good without the ayatollah's blessing leads to ayatollah cursing.

In describing "responsible recycler" practices in their Wikipedia article on "E-Stewards", Basel Action Network tries to poison the well on the term:

Jim Puckett, director and founder of BAN, said: "Sadly not all of those companies that call themselves responsible recyclers are truly responsible and many are not recyclers at all, but are just exporters. We have been to the techno-trash dumping grounds of Africa and Asia and seen the children being poisoned. This is why we created the e-Stewards Certification in the first place."^[3]

Jim made a similar accusation, in an editorial he published in 2009 E-Scrap News, that "fair trade" recyclers were "poisoning people".  He claimed to have knowledge that containers of refurbishable equipment imported into Indonesia was "hazardous waste" (same claim we are still waiting to shake out from his accusation against Intercon Solutions of Chicago Heights).

The marketing against a standard developed to improve e-waste trade is obnoxious at best.  The R2 "Responsible Recyclers" program represents a two-year consensus document approved by regulators, NGOs, and industry, not "just exporters".  It is the association with possible exporters which poisons all the other R2 certifications, according to BAN.   "Exporting" according to BAN, simply means poisoning children, not creating internet cafes in Africa.

Poisoning the well for alternative certification standards does not just affect the exporters or users of a particular practice.   Consider the effect on R2 companies which do not even export.   If you are R2 certified, even if you do not export, you may share a certification with someone who does export.  And that exporter, while they have been certified for proper and legal exports, BAN implies may be poisoning children...   You may be R2 certified and use no prison labor (most do not), but because a prison program can seek R2 certification, wham!  You are not the same as a prison program.    Someone who goes to a church which allows gay marriage is the same as someone married to a gay person... at least, that's the same logical thread.... Joe McCarthy reincarnate.

Just how big is the risk that an exporter "among" the R2 may be poisoning innocent little babies?   BAN is silent about the major study released on Ghana's imports of used computers, showing 85% reuse.  Why?  Why do professional AID workers, Peace Corps volunteers, and development officials applaud the same fair trade recycling importers in Africa which BAN says are poisoning children?  Why would stakeholders from NGOs, EPA, and industry "collude" on an R2 standard which kills children with e-waste?   Nevermind the fact that almost all the exports come from Europe and not the USA (BAN applauds the EU's higher standards).

When someone is promoting something, marketing it in this way, there's one common denominator.

Follow the money...  the difference between R2 and E-Stewards is payola to BAN... not a dime of which goes to help a single African baby.