E-Wasted Decade: List of 10 Winners, Losers

The Conclusion of the last "E-Waste" Decade sees a number of Dynasties created by the stories, real and imagined, underplayed and exaggerated.  Who came out ahead and who lost?

1.  Basel Action Network:  Winner

BAN.org went from being a very obscure NGO working on an even more obscure treaty.  They had a very small budget for travel, and no budget for science.  But despite their meager assets, they manage to craft a story that was widely accepted as fact, and in the process became recognized as important experts in the field of waste, recycling,  pollution and international development.  They tried to "capitalize" on their success by branding a certification program, which they named "E-Stewards".  Mainly it is insurance that if you pay for it, they won't attack you.  But it was successful and BAN created a dynasty.

2.:  Journalists:  Winners

Jerry Powell and company had a magazine, Resource Recycling, which was competing with Recycling Today, Waste News, Scrap, Recycling International, Waste Age, Waste Dynamics, etc.  The company used the controversy surrounding E-Waste to build a huge conference with built-in controversy and word-of-mouth sales. Being one of the first to recognize the hot-buttons and controversy BAN.org was churning, Resource Recycling was able to turn that into money, but was not the only one.   Other trade publications sold more "data wiping" and "shredding equipment" ads which were not likely to be paid for by Taiwanese reuse factories.  Other journalists, from CBS 60 Minutes to Businessweek to Audabon magazine were able to write "gotcha" stories with a uniquely exotic flavor.  Recycling exports are bad was a "man bites dog" shark attack story that just kept on giving.   So journalists are winners - financially.

Sobering Next E-Waste Decade

The "e-waste trade" was mis-characterized from 2000-2010.  While about 15-30% of exports were scrapped, the scrap was not particularly dangerous (not found to cause the water pollution in Guiyu, and most lead poisoning comes from burning heavy insulated electric cable, not lead solder or CRT glass).  There was a lot of fodder to write about, in a debate whether the export glass was 80% empty or 80% full.

There is a change I can report on, from my trip to South America.

da pond ain't so small, eh?

During most of the past decade, the USA, Europe and Japan represented "the only game in town" for large scale refurbishing factories.  Contract manufacturers (takeback) operated 3-shifts per day, refurbishing and upgrading white-box computers and displays for "good enough" markets in India and China.  They depended on wealthy nations with 10 years of surplus in order to operate at scale and meet demand, just as they had depended on those nations as consumers for their scale of manufacturing in the 1990s.

When California took itself off the market, it had supply-demand effects on NJ and VT, because there were only so many places a buyer could go for the supply.   Forced to buy from less reputable suppliers (as during any prohibition), quality of imports actually suffered due to the West's anti-export campaign.

During that period, China and India did indeed have their own e-waste and surplus, but it wasn't enough to actually export out of country.  What was generated domestically was used or recycled or disposed of domestically, in Dharvi or Guiyu.

That last part is changing.  We are not the only game in town.  My trip to South America really brought the changes home.