Vermont Ilsley Public Library: Vermont Child E-Waste Tinkerers

Today (Friday March 15, 2013) is an "In-Service Day" in Addison County, and the Middlebury public schools are closed.   One of those days that's not a holiday for parents, and we schedule little things like tonsillectomy (my son, 8:00AM), or trips to the dentist (my 16 year old twins) if we are thinking far enough ahead.

If you are in Middlebury Vermont today, and you didn't plan that far ahead, here's another opportunity.  Good Point Recycling and the Ilsley Public Library are putting on a Special Event for Kids.  In the spirit of the "maker movement", "yankee ingenuity", and can-do tinkerer blessing, we will exploit ... 'err.. hold on, I'm getting an urgent call from our PR office.

Imagination Vacation:  Tinkering With Technology

Event:

Imagination Vacation: Tinkering with Technology

Start:

March 15, 2013 10:30 am

End:

March 15, 2013 12:00 pm

Category:

Kids

Updated:

March 1, 2013

Venue:

Community meeting room

Address:

Ilsley Public Library,Middlebury

This hands-on workshop allows school-age children the freedom to explore the art and science of  ”how stuff works” in the spirit of the popular “maker movement.”  Library staff and re-use experts from Good Point Recycling will help you use hand tools to explore the mechanics of a variety of technologies from computers to telephones.  Bring your own hand tools, such as screwdrivers and pliers if you have them.  Adults and welcome too.

Term Paper Required Reading: Waste Policy Haves and Have Nots

Here are three background reading assignments:

A:  History of the light bulb (Arizona State University INVSEE)
B:  Rapidly Urbanizing Populations Face Unique Challenges (WorldWatch Institute)
C:  Network of Tinkerers - 2007 US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Network of Tinkerers - Bureau of Labor Statistics
	[PDF]  www.bls.gov/ore/pdf/ec070120.pdf File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View by PB Meyer - 2007 - Cited by 5 - Related articles Nov 5, 2007 – Network of Tinkerers: A Model of Open-Source Technology Innovation. Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Working Paper 413 ...

When you fail to understand that "waste" is relative, and you apply the precautions over past waste in present contexts, you would take the used printing press from Benjamin Franklin, you'd take the used RCA victrolas from from Japan Victrola Corporation.

The movement of used goods from "haves" to "have nots" is a story of opportunity.  Sales of working product (USA producing new cars and selling them to Europe) is an exchange from "haves" to "have nots".   Donations of rice to children is an exchange.  Purchase of coffee from a country that has coffee, for consumption in a country that does not have coffee, is an exchange between haves and have nots.

When you study the history of development, and the history of tinkering, and the history of new products, from light bulbs to flush toilets, you prepare yourself to do a better job trading in commerce. Or you can tell yourself that prohibition, boycotts, and bans on commerce are the answer... if you ignore the history of prohibition, bans, and boycotts.

Presentation at MIT: Sustainability and Tinkerer Blessings

The theme of my presentation at Mass Institute of Technology (MIT) University this afternoon.

It's a class on international development strategy.

It took me back to high school.

This slide explains how I turned from philosophy to scrap recycling.

Recycling goes beyond human health, it conserves energy and resources for future generations.   The opponents of recycling have trouble coping just with the fact that kids they photographed 12 years ago are now adults working in smartphone factories in China, and understanding that Africans began throwing used televisions away 30 years ago.  This is ultimately about whether we are intelligent enough, and care enough, to do things today which affect the generations yet to be born.

ODM - Opportunity is in the Wind

First, here is a May 2010 film from Financial Times, which was done during the wave of 10 suicides at Foxconn (Han Hoi) in Shenzhen (click "MORE")

Fair Trade Recycling: Networks of Tinkerers

I have a lot of deadlines pressing, and a lot of 80% finished stuff in the DRAFTS folder, so I'll be spending less time in the next week competing for the latest and most cutting edge developments on electronics scrap export policy, surplus property policy, e-waste, digital divide, and Fair Trade Recycling.  We do have a big WR3A Announcement coming down the pike in the next 2 weeks, so stay tuned.

Tinkered Printing Press

Meanwhile, we try to be a resource for university and college students who are studying the past and present about trade in "e-waste" and surplus property.  We have an exciting new Master's Thesis student here in Middlebury for 6 months, who traveled from Paul Cezanne University in France just to study "E-Waste" with WR3A.

Many of these students come from other nations, and it's obvious to many of them that transfer of surplus technology is a transfer of wealth.  We never seem to see that simple idea in any UN, EU, or even EPA documentation.  It's as if our culture has become so obsessive-compulsive about food spoilage in the refrigerators that we are banning sale of food to starving nations unless we have proof it won't spoil.  If you give food to a starving child, you better have done your paperwork.

The "hyperbole of harm" accusations by groups like Basel Action Network have made donations and trade almost "radioactive" for donors.  Who is hurt?  Poor people, democracy, and the environment.  

My "hypothesis" that "tinkering" (see Japan, a Network of Tinkerers, Y. Takahashi, 2000) is the opposite of the "resource curse", that repair and refurbishing (or "Yankee Ingenuity") is a form of "value added" which has been critical to the most successful international development stories... it can probably be documented here in the USA when Yankees bought manufacturing practices and "surplus from upgrades" from England (c.f. Benjamin Franklin autobiography, on printing technology).

So again for the academics, here is some light reading about how Japan went from resource-starved and military complex into becoming the kingpin for technology two decades later.  This is happening in real time in India, Indonesia, and China - just to  name three of the five largest countries in the world, two of them the top Muslim population and largest democracies.

A Network of Tinkerers:
The Advent of the Radio and Television Receiver Industry in Japan

Yuzo Takahashi

Technology and Culture
Vol. 41, No. 3 (Jul., 2000), pp. 460-484
(article consists of 25 pages)

Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Society for the History of Technology

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25147538

Departing Words CES Presentation - "EWaste Not"

OECD is 1/5 of world population, but only 1/2 of sales.  How E-Recycling Opens the Market

Fair Trade Recycling is a 4:1 Friendship

My points on yesterday's panel at CES were that the Geeks of Color, and the buyers in the Emerging / Converging Markets who depend on them, are tomorrow's market. 70% of electronics sales in Africa are used, some of the 30% "new" are actually refurbished cores.

When places like Egypt had a desire for big USA brand names (and aversion to E-Machines), the USA was like Ford Motors, watching new drivers get their licenses and learning to drive used cars.   Ford needs used cars so that people learn to drive sooner and own more cars in their lifetimes.  Similarly, our electronics industry needs the used equipment to give people an incentive to get online, watch programming, etc... which will lead to new markets and sales in the future.

When Egypt or Indonesia bans imports of anything more than 3 years after date of manufacture, it's essentially a ban on all used sales.   Goods are often not sold for a year, and then they are used for at least two years, then it takes months to collect and ship them.

The consumers in those markets are left with 3 choices:

1)  Go without
2)  Buy brand new, with 30% of their total annual income ($3000 per year)
3)  Learn to like cheap no-name, white box, Chinese brands.