Racketeering or Certification 6: Defamation Is The Only Product BAN Sells

The 2019 Certification or Racketeering series of blogs began about Total Reclaim of Seattle.  Craig Lorch and Jeff Zirkle were sentenced last week on their fraud case.  I offered to fly in to testify, and sent them a letter for the judge, to make the case (as in the blog) that the executives at Total Reclaim had been told by BAN that 80% of recyclers were shipping 80% of goods overseas, where 100% percent were smashed by hands in primitive conditions. As I testified at Brundage's sentencing hearing in Chicago, those were false claims.

• BAN begins by defaming the Tech Sector overseas, with wild hallucinatory descriptions of thousands of orphans in rice paddies beating electronics with hammers. 
• BAN creates a lie about the Basel Convention having been "amended" to criminalize legal exports (reuse, repair and recycling are ALL legal under the actual Basel Convention, not just "tested working")
• BAN then defames those who (like yours truly) question or rebut the initial defamation, or correct information they give about the Basel treaty.
• BAN defames the companies who don't pay tribute through E-Stewards certification, and defames the alternative certifications.
• If the companies like Intercon or Total Reclaim threaten to withdraw from BAN, or defend themselves (Total Reclaim exported far less than 10% of the material they received), BAN's enforcement is to defame them.

Essentially, defamation and slander are BAN's only product. And at its root, the initial domino of defamation - of people in faraway geographies beating LCDs and CRTs with hammers - is a fake statistic. BAN is the most ruthless in attacking anyone who questions their credentials.

What percentage of what Total Reclaim exported became "waste"? Was that the source of the corporate profits? Or were those profits, and the repeated purchse of flat screens from Asians, evidence that the exports were likely NOT WASTED?  How does the Department of Justice conflate fraud, profit, and mercury to poison our minds with racist assumptions about Asia's Tech Sector when there is no evidence that the goods were dumped?  The crime Total Reclaim execs pled guilty to was lying about the export, not knowing the goods were dumped or that the buyers were poisoned.

It's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Intercon Sentencing, Defamation, and Charity vs Charity Grudge Match

Chicago's Hall of Mirror Balls

Several people heard a "whoosh" sound while reading the April Fools Day Blog.  The BAN vs ERA of Canada - two recognized tax charities - defamation lawsuit was dropped about the same time.  But ERA's leader Bojan Paduh (a refugee of Bosnia during the 1990s civil war) is someone I got to know as a result of the lawsuit.  His anger at BAN is absolutely seething in a way I have not heard since Brian Brundage sued the NGO 6 years ago. (For April Fool reference, see email from BAN at bottom).

I told Bojan that I had indeed, more than once, considered a defamation lawsuit against BAN. Brian Brundage (like Bojan) had asked if I was interested in joining class action (shared legal cost) approach.  I spoke to an attorney about it in 2012, when Basel Action Network told a Chicago Newspaper that I was "lying through my teeth" and that the "state of the art" reuse and recycling facilities I had visited and eyewitnessed in Asia were a "myth". According to the reporter, BAN warned him against even listening to me, stating I was mentally ill and that everyone in the recycling community knew it.

"Most libel cases are filed by private citizens. There are reasons for that. Private citizens have a much lower bar to hurdle. They have to prove that the statement was factually wrong, that it was published, that it referred to them and damaged their reputation—and that somebody is responsible for it. That the person who made the statements was negligent." - Guy Bergstrom, "To Sue or Not to Sue: Libel"

Now BAN has learned a thing or two from their experience paying attorneys to defend them in defamation and liable lawsuits.  The 2012 attack on me was certainly explicit and personal, not against a company and not a vague "opinion".  They explicitly warned a reporter not to talk to me, and gave reasons why I was not credible.  Because BAN had to take the unusual step of apologizing and retracting their statements, I get contacted a lot for advice from others wanting to sue BAN. But they have learned to be a little more cautious in some cases (like using the term "likely illegal" against ERA, instead of "illegal", as they claimed in 2012).

Instead of suing, I accepted BAN's apology, which was run in the same Chicago Patch newspaper. I was not really satisfied with the apology, because it did not remove the insult or racial profiling I originally objected to. I was not the person being defamed, it was the Tech Sector overseas, the poor people who make a lot more money repairing rich peoples stuff than they can make repairing poor peoples stuff.

Garrison vs American Retroworks

The landlord of the Closed Loop Recycling (CLRR) certainly has a mess to clean up.

We will be submitting a claim in the near future ourselves. Unfortunately, our attorneys don't want us to make the case in the papers, yet.

But the headlines already generated calls from our clients.  So here are a few points of fact that need to be considered in any story.

Certification and Racketeering 5: Analysis of Seven GPS Tracking Studies

2018 GreenTrack Report found only 5% export, including export to OECD countries grntrac.com DWE

In the next blogs of this series "Certification and Racketeering", we look at a chart comparing 6 actual and 1 hypothetical use of GPS Tracking Devices to follow largely unwitting and unwilling subjects.  We compare methods of placement, tracking, and financial involvement of lead investigators. From there, we will delve into whether the study acts as "Environmental Watchdog" or merely protects the claims of being an authority when those claims are threatened. If, for example, a GPS tracking study specifically seeks to discredit or scandalize someone who has a beef with the Investigator, does that influence the mechanics of the study?

In the 7th hypothetical GPS Tracking study, I've deliberately created a clearcut "Racketeering" use (using the tracking study to offer a solution to a problem that would not otherwise exist without the financial interest of the investigator). The hypothetical would clearly be a matter for the American Civil Liberties Union, or EFF, or Interpol or Bob Mueller to decide. We then correlate the studies to see which ones have more in common with the Racketeering Hypothesis.  Then we look at quotes and behavior of the lead investigator.

Certain MIT students, when they get older, may want to come forward and disclose specific methods used to drop specific devices at specific places. I can promise anonymity and cover your costs. I can also put you in touch with MIT's own attorney, who took over correspondence after MIT Senseable City Lab excused themselves from further collaboration with BAN.org

Fair Trade Recycling Geek in Tamale, Ghana

Later, we will visit ("Take Your Pic") the use of cringy photos to jolt emotions when the actual statistical findings are not doing the trick. The art of a deal "selling" an unnecessary service, deceitful or otherwise, involves provocative / race-baiting imagery.

In the DWE tracking study, Dennis Ward    @dward_dennis gives us charts. In report by BAN, we have constant tear-jerking imagery evocative of our worst fears and perceptions of their so-called "Third World". But let's first focus on the methodology in 7 separate GPS Tracking Reports.

GPS trackers show exchange of products between two consenting parties.  There is not a single case of direct dumping of used electronics at foreign landfills. Who are we guilty of doing business with? And what makes our partnership suspicious?

Racketeering and Certification #3: Targeted Collateral Damage!?

How does Basel Action Network define Africa's Tech Sector, who purchase affordable solid state electronics for import, as a "Problem"?

First, look at their words.

Primitive. Pawing. Ghoulish. Skeletal. Rice Paddy. Shantytown. Swamp. Third World. Orphan. Toxic Soup, Witches' Brew, Cadavres...

Next, look at their claims.

80% of all ewaste is exported... Stuff at dumps imported days before... Children and teenagers... Most die within 5 years... Illegal under Basel Ban Amendment... 

Published in UNU Report 2015

And we can't look away from their photos.

At first glance, these are meant, like a tear-jerking Humane Society sad-dog-trick ad, to appeal to retiree church ladies or college PIRG fundraisers.

That is not who funds these ads. The poor kids herding goats at African landfills do not benefit.

Part II assessed BAN's service technique of selling a sabotaged (but nice looking) computer or TV with a GPS tracker inside to someone who does business with Africa or Asia's Tech Sector. Through a "Tracker" service they sell for money, you can investigate a competitor's sales. To legitimize the spy-ware (literally "ware") they try to make it about pollution and children.  They send reporters, like BBC Raphael Rowe, to a dump in a city that has had TV stations and electricity for a half century, and tell the reporter it used to be a lush paradise until bad, bad African repairmen imported waste to burn on it. But usually, they just send the reporter pictures, fake stats, and halloweeny words.

Racketeering often involves a conspiracy, a complicated system of money laundering, even through charities (USAToday). If the IRS investigates this NGO, through a complaint form 13909, there might be a domino effect. If billionaire corporations are privately benefiting from false claims, they could wind up at the sharp end of the Lanham Act. And million dollar settlements may ensue.

Take a look at the photos (below) Jim is taking now....

BAN MIT MoniTour Teardown: Inside the Ewaste Export Controversy

The MIT MoniTour @KCTS-9 Basel Action Network "Expose on Exporting" #trackingewaste is still being reviewed by review researchers, recycling experts, and reporters.  Memorial University has helped plot final landing points for devices.  There are still a large number of items in places that BAN can't quite explain.  [There are data points missing, which we located on Monitour but are not in the table per MUN]

- There are good places overseas (BAN now says "never said there weren't")
- People who never exported are highlighted for political reasons (BAN says it's justified)
- BAN's own math suggests 11% total exports (good or bad end points)
- BAN's conclusion (use E-Stewards) belies BAN's financial interest

As one of the people who never exported the tracked device, but whose clients were assaulted by BAN's innuendo I've got a particular axe to grind.  But the main point is that I have consistently made the same argument before BAN attacked me personally.  Jim Puckett has told a reporter directly what I inferred from the article - that I came up with EcoPark, etc., to cover up my shipment to Mr. Lai's Printer Farm.  It's in print, and it's provably false, and I need another apology.

BAN made a very legitimate point via their GPS tracking study - that despite normal diligence, we should not assume for sure material exported to Asia won't go "sideways" to a scrap metal vendor (any more than we can assume that via E-Stewards).  But Jim Puckett tries to push the point too far, and in so doing damages the names and reputations of state of the art repair geeks overseas, Boston area MIT hippy coops, Vermont ADA employees, and legitimate discussion of environmental policy.

Perhaps Jim yielded to his frustration and inability to control the story in a tidy direction, and now has injured people that shouldn't be injured.  He needlessly involved innocent MIT students, Carlo Ratti, KCTS, and The Body Shop Foundation in a pissing match over environmental justice.  Jim simply needs to say "I'm sorry".   Again.

Watchdog Issues Apology For Personal Attacks in E-Waste Article

Jim documenting CRT glass was not exported as he claimed (AZ)

Geography Baiting 3: Retribution Strikes Press Release from BAN

While we wait patiently for answers from MIT about the ethics questions we have on Senseable City's "joint project" with Basel Action Network, BAN strikes.

"40% of  e-Waste given to Recyclers gets Shipped Illegally to Polluting Operations Overseas" - Jim Puckett, Basel Action Network

Since we have sent multiple letters to MIT and emails to BAN, offering to meet to show our processes and all downstream information, we know that BAN is conscious of the false and derogatory information embedded in this statement, explained below.  The question is, do they do it purposefully to cause harm?

1.  It is NOT 40% of e-Waste given to Recyclers.

BAN never tracked 65% of the weight (CRT and projection TVs that practically never get exported).  They sample tracked 3 types of device (printers, CRT monitors, LCDs) and found - of those - that about 36% were exported.   36% of 35% is not 40%.

2.  Most of the 40% tracked was NOT shipped illegally.

We showed here on the blog devices tracked to reuse and refurbishing operations.  Also, Hong Kong doesn't consider printers hazardous waste and BAN attacks them for classifying them as non-hazardous waste even as BAN calls them "clearly" hazardous waste in their report.

3. Most Overseas Operations are NOT Polluting.

The one BAN focuses all their attention on - Mr. Lai's Printer Farm - is visually concerning, and it was NOT identified as a destination on our downstream tracking.  So kudos on that.  But to say it is representative of the 40% of 35% is racist and insulting.  Other devices went to places overseas anyone should be PROUD to work with.

But the point of BAN's report is clear.  They do not go after companies that pack and export.  They do not track most of the destinations.  They track my company in several pages.  It's because I spoke out about them.  I believe that is the message here, to make other recyclers afraid to speak up on behalf of the geeks of color, to intimidate those of us who object to racial profiling, who do NOT pay them tribute money via E-Stewards (using an E-Steward company shows prominently on the press release, though the GPS tracking didn't show that to be determinate).

My company baled 95% of the printers we received for shredding - some by E-Stewards, all by R2 certified companies.  Of the FIVE (5%)* our crew found potentially reuse and repairable, we either tested them ourselves or more likely sent them to another R2 company which listed reuse as a potential outcome (not 100% shredder).   It was one of those 5% nice-looking ones that we sent to a USA company, which had listed certified Hong Kong destinations as their partners.  And, notably, one of those BAN and MIT chose to send to us.

When BAN and MIT hide the data we requested since last May, it just makes it hard for us to respond.  BAN plays the Bilbo Baggins Riddle "What (data) have I got in my pocket?"   We did find some of the tracked devices DID go to the Hong Kong EcoPark. If ours did not - and I accept that now - we have to find out who misdirected it (the USA company or the Hong Kong certified company).  Even if it was legal, it may not be acceptable.

For all we know, the device WOULD have been reused and repaired if not but FOR BAN's Sabotage.  I don't open all the halloween candy I buy to make sure no one sabotaged it.  Until now, I doubt anyone has opened a repairable printer and cut up the guts to make it unrepairable.  There's a word for that, but it's not a polite one.

The point is that BAN is a bully and directs its Reports and Press Releases not to enlighten, but to casuse people to fear them, and to pay them tribute.  It is because I read the Report, studied it, tracked devices to different places, made 14 pages of comment and critique, that my company is profiled in the report.  What I want to know is why people at MIT would not see this for what it is.

We did not, NOT export the device.  We send printers we have DETERMINED to be unusable to a shredder, and that is MOST of the printers.  If BAN intended to show we export, they'd choose a printer that sells for ten times scrap value on ebay and Amazon, and they'd make it unrepairable with internal damage.  We did not export even THAT (Jim stated we "exported to Chicago" in his email).  This is a spray-paint job by BAN.  And while our Chicago partner has offered to just let me "push him under the bus" (and claim it wasn't us), I prefer to out this Senator Joe McCarthy.

At long last, NGO, have you no sense of decency?  Have you no shame?

* (Ed correction -. first edition of blog mistakenly reported on 95% not repairable by omitting the word "not". Only 5% of printers at my company have been set aside for potential reuse in 5 years)

Press Release Below.

Secret Tracking Project Finds that Your Old Electronic Waste Gets Exported to Developing Countries 40% of  e-Waste given to Recyclers gets Shipped Illegally to Polluting Operations Overseas

September 15, 2016. Seattle, WA. Utilizing high-tech methods to track high-tech wastes, the environmental watchdog, Basel Action Network (BAN) as part of their e-Trash Transparency Project, funded by the Body Shop Foundation, planted GPS trackers into 205 old printers and monitors and then delivered them to charities and recyclers. The new report, entitled Scam Recycling: e-Dumping on Asia by US Recyclers, revealed that of those that were handed over to American electronics recyclers, 40 percent did not get recycled in the US as expected by customers, but were instead exported to highly-polluting and unsafe operations in developing countries -- mostly in Asia.   "The American public continues to be scammed by unethical companies greenwashing themselves as 'recyclers'," said BAN Executive Director Jim Puckett. "The toxic chemicals released by the crude breakdown of our old electronics in the junkyards in Hong Kong not only harms workers and communities abroad, but comes back to hurt us as well. We are the only developed country in the world that ignores this problem. It's time to stop say 'enough is enough'." Among the findings of the report, BAN found that: 40% of the 152 deliveries to US electronics recyclers went offshore -- mostly to China 96% of the exports are likely to be illegal under international or US law  93% of the US e-waste exports moved to developing countries 75 companies were involved in a chain of transactions that led to export of e-waste.* Many recyclers involved in export made website claims of never exporting "R2" Certified Recyclers exported at greater than average rates, e-Stewards Certified Recyclers at less than average Hong Kong electronics junkyards expose workers and the environment to dangerous toxins such as mercury.  The exported tracked devices, travelled to Hong Kong (37), Mainland China (11), Taiwan (5), Pakistan (4), Mexico (3), Thailand (2), Canada (2), and one each in United Arab Emirates, Togo, Kenya, Cambodia, and the Dominican Republic. MIT's Sensable City Labs worked in partnership with BAN to produce an interactive online map  to show the pathways of all of the 205 trackers. Most of BAN's trackers had found their way via ship and truck to 48 different sites in a semi-rural part of Hong Kong known as New Territories. BAN travelled there and visited the precise locations where the trackers ended up. They found massive volumes of LCD monitors, printers and other electronics being smashed each day and broken apart by hand in hidden junkyards, allowing the release of printer toners, and mercury phosphors easily inhaled by workers both unprotected from, and unaware of, the hazards.   BAN also looked at the electronics certification programs designed to improve ensure recycling management. The "R2" certification program created as a result of an EPA convened multi-stakeholder process has about 5 times more certified recyclers than the e-Stewards program (a more rigorous standard), but it was found that "R2" members had a higher rate of being associated with export than even uncertified recyclers. Recyclers certified to the e-Stewards Standard had the lowest export rate. The e-Stewards Standard was created by the Basel Action Network together with industry leaders. It is designed to be fully consistent with international law and is the only e-recycling program that utilizes tracker technology to verify conformity with the standard. The BAN report calls for the following key recommendations: All consumers and businesses concerned about preventing pollution of the global environment should make exclusive use of e-Stewards Certified Recyclers .   President Obama should sign an executive order to prevent US government e-waste from being exported overseas.  All others can sign petition for this .   Manufacturers, governments and recyclers should commit to full transparency of where they send all of their hazardous electronic waste. Hong Kong government should ban all imports of hazardous e-waste and close the informal New Territories junkyards. Download the report here: http://wiki.ban.org/File:ScamRecyclingReport-web.pdf  (low-resolution ver.) http://wiki.ban.org/File:ScamRecyclingReport-print.pdf  (high-resolution ver.) For more information: Jim Puckett, Executive Director, Basel Action Network Email: jpuckett@ban.org Phone: +1 (206) 652-5555

African "E-Waste" Witch Hunt #4: LCS-Judge Dawson-TinTin vs. Benson-Daniels

Why does the Crown Court threaten 60 months in prison to an illiterate African born TV Repairman?  Because it cannot prove its case and needs to "plea it out".  Here is the fourth blog in the E-Waste Witch Hunt Series, featuring men old enough to remember Ghana as a British Colony, getting their "facts" from Michael Anane, Jim Puckett, and TinTin Comics.  Posting publicly the prosecution's case and sentencing remarks against #FREEHURRICANEBENSON...

His Honor Judge Dawson's Sentencing Remarks

Judge Dawson and LCS Get Facts from Tin Tin

"Basically, the situation seems to be, if I can put it into, again, rather layman's language, that waste electrical goods can be exported to other countries quite sensibly and be used by other countries who perhaps cannot afford such things themselves, poorer countries in the main I imagine, but the rules and regulations to protect the environment say that that waste material must be converted back into items which have been properly tested and which therefore can be safely exported as properly tested secondhand items. 

"In essence, what happened here is that when the environment agency intercepted these containers they looked inside them and they found that a large proportion of the items were hazardous waste, were not tested or suitable for use abroad, and in reality what would have happened -- the percentage is about 50 per cent -- in reality what would have happened is that large containers would have arrived in these African countries and 50 per cent of the items inside would have been hazardous waste. What happens, I am told, is that although there are rules and regulations all over the world for the treatment of hazardous waste, the reality is that in countries such as these the hazardous waste is not properly policed and therefore creates a danger, an environmental danger, not only to the residents and citizens of that country but I suppose to the world because these hazardous materials can create a problem of pollution worldwide."

The bold italics I added to link to NGOs Basel Action Network, who made this claim in "A Place Called Away"... after describing the Metal Scrappers in Agbogbloshie as "children" and depicting them with ghoulish, halloween language, Puckett gives the story about Benson's containers.

"This material [at the Agbogbloshie scrapyard] made its arrival on African shores just some days earlier as cargo inside 40-foot intermodal corrugated containers — the shifting bricks of globalized trade turned techno-trash haulers. Around 400 of these, each containing about 600 computers or monitors arrive each month at the Port of Tema, Ghana, from the UK, USA, Canada and countless other rich and developed countries. They may find a quick stay on the floors and shelves of hundreds of second-hand markets throughout Accra. But those that do not sell — about half, even if they work perfectly — are then picked up by small boys pushing heavy carts and hauled several miles to the outskirts of town, to be thrown away — to Agbogbloshie’s scavengers." 

"small boys" according to Jim Puckett

For film of the "Small Boys", see the Alex Wondergem / Adu Lalouschek documentary titled "Scrap Metal Men". These are not small boys, Abogbloshie is definitely not on the "outskirts of town", and the display devices "working or not" are not thrown away.  But despite 3 preposterous, self evidently false claims in the paragraph, Judge Dawson appears to give the claim more weight than Benson's.

Basel Action Network Accuses R2 Certified Companies of Illegal Acts

On June 17, Basel Action Network released another attack piece, accusing R2 Solutions of violating international law.  In doing so, BAN has indirectly attacked my company, which chose to pay for R2 Certification rather than accepting E-Stewards written offer to pay BAN to certify our operation to their own E-Stewards Standard.

Here's an "as concise" critique of BAN's "concise critique", based on the following international law.

Article 17 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: 

1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. 2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Five Fundamental Flaws.   A Concise Critique of the R2:2013 Standard  / June 17, 2013

"The [R2] Standard suffers greatly from its seeming intentional avoidance of international law as it refuses to acknowledge or recognize the definitions and obligations, decisions and guidelines of the Basel Convention, which all developed countries, except the United States have ratified and implemented and is now globally adopted by 180 countries." - Jim Puckett

There are three problems with BAN's analysis of their competitors at R2 Solutions.  The third is the most important.

Apology From BAN Consultant: Myth Dilemma

Note:   I updated this post from last year, because Jim Puckett has twice accused me of mudslinging in the past week, and I saw the link to the Chicago Patch article was gone.  JUST the one article is missing, by the way, the one where BAN insults me personally.   I didn't mean to raise it to a new publication date.  But not sure how to put it back onto last year.

Continue below if you like the rerun / refresher.

Fair Trade Recycling: Deleted By Trolls on Slashdot.org? Cal Milmo Redux?

Somda:  I can do that.

I've been completely unsuccessful in keeping this story alive on Slashdot.   We need to go Reddit or StumbledUpon.  Deleted from Slashdot Submissions:

retroworks writes  "They came to our African city dumps and photographed children burning scrap — scrap that was thrown away after decades of use. Then they said our African businessmen and women had imported the junk recently, and dumped 80-90% of it. Our entrepreneurs have been arrested, and our internet cafes and hospitals denied IT equipment, and our citizens told to buy brand new devices which they cannot afford, or which — when made cheaply — fail at a higher rate than the quality used equipment. And the Environmentalist who use our children's images keep the money, and don't share a dime with Africa." 

This damning quote from Jean Frederic Fahiri Somda of Burkina Faso , who opened the Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit, was not the first to defend Africans accused of creating "e-waste" dumps in European and USA media — an allegation that has recently resulted in the arrest of 40 African export businesses in Europe, and allegations by EPA that Egyptian businesses who purchased CRT monitors in the USA for $21 each intended to crudely recycle them. 

At the FTR Summit, Field Studies and Surveys from US International Trade Commission, Basel Convention Secretariat, IDC, MIT, Memorial University, ASU, etc. presented at the Summit consistently predicted that 85-90% of used electronics purchased by Africans will be reused for years before reaching the dump. African representatives claimed that USA and European reused equipment is less prone to returns than affordable (Chinese) new equipment."
This damning quote from Jean Frederic Fahiri Somda of Burkina Faso , who opened the Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit, was not the first to defend Africans accused of creating "e-waste" dumps in European and USA media — an allegation that has recently resulted in the arrest of 40 African export businesses in Europe, and allegations by EPA that Egyptian businesses who purchased CRT monitors in the USA for $21 each intended to crudely recycle them. 
At the FTR Summit, Field Studies and Surveys from US International Trade Commission, Basel Convention Secretariat, IDC, MIT, Memorial University, ASU, etc. presented at the Summit consistently predicted that 85-90% of used electronics purchased by Africans will be reused for years before reaching the dump. African representatives claimed that USA and European reused equipment is less prone to returns than affordable (Chinese) new equipment."

None of the links goes anywhere unvetted or controversial, or to a self-blog.  The key link is to live recordings of professional researchers.   They all agree with Mr. Somda.  The arrests of African used goods importers is a perverse outcome, a type of environmental malpractice, a defamation, an unintended consequence, or even an example of racial profiling gone absolutely wrong.

Environmental Malpractice 5.1: Egypt and USA Crimes

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. 
- Winston Churchill

Aggravated against the profiling, arrest, and then defamation of 3 cases of Geeks of Color...   Just as I went to check on BAN.org's coverage of the Joseph Benson (Env Malpractice 7) case, I found this gem about similar USA arrest of "E-waste Criminals".  It's another digression from the Final Environmental Malpractice case study of the Indonesian reuse plant.

Here is the entire discussion between Mike Enberg of BAN and I, using their blog... assuming my comment below isn't "moderated" away.

Environmental Malpractice Part 4: Poverty Porn

Born in:   Mexico, Mexico, USA, Palestine, USA, Taiwan, USA, Malaysia

So at our meeting in Vegas, Jim Puckett made the case that the world will be better if we all obey "international law", and that defamation of technicians, and closure of sustainable repair and reuse factories, is acceptable "collateral damage".  Jim presents himself, again and again, as an authority on Basel Convention.

The use of international treaties to simultaneously protect the 6 billion people in "non-OECD" nations from ... bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...  and the same time generate millions of well-intentioned dollars for a Seattle non-profit... This is not BAN.org's invention.  Poverty Porn has been around for decades.

Since my days studying international development at Carleton College, and as both a volunteer and employee (cross-culture trainer) for Peace Corps Africa, we've been aware of the "poster child" syndrome.  Here's a recent editorial on "Poverty Porn" by Nathaniel Whittemore at Co.Exist  (and here's a film from an admittedly donation-based organization in Africa, MamaHope.org, which does at least give hope for a different message).

The Hollywood and not-for-profit-Guilt-Industrial-Complex are really nice people to hang around with, as Jim and Mike both were in Vegas.  They are nicer people than I am.   Calling them accidental racists or ayatollahs of #ewaste was a decent into frustration.    If we are to turn them around, we need to first get their attention (which I've done) but then to find an alternative to the touchy word "racism".

Grouchy Marxist Defamation or Groucho Marx Defense?

“I have nothing but respect for you -- and not much of that.”
― Groucho Marx

My company, Good Point Recycling, used to charge residents $10-20 per TV, which most people were willing to pay every 10 years when they threw one away.  Here is a 2006 article (Burlington Free Press) praising us for the process and markets we used,..  

Interestingly, it's reposted on the wall of Basel Action Network.  It was posted in 2006', in happier days when BAN called me regularly to help them "certify" Pledge signers (like "Tom", in the article), before their consultants accused me of lying about the factories described in the article, which BAN chose to post on its website.

So, the article goes into detail about the distinction between "unknown" export markets and the use of legitimate export refurbishing factories.  BAN not only posted this article about the distinction, but BAN has also inserted language into their E-Stewards program describing "semiknockdown" factories, with instructions that any parts which may be electively upgraded or replaced must be removed in the USA before the CRT is exported.  

BAN also negotiated for the same terms in our "California Compromise" agreement, which fell flat in 2010.

“Are you going to believe me, or what you see with your own eyes?”
― Groucho Marx

To finesse the obvious differences between factories (like the one in Indonesia, at left) and the dirty recycling in Guiyu China, Jim Puckett, the Chief Executive at BAN, wrote in an Op-Ed piece that the disposal of parts replaced (common in an elective upgrade at the contract manufacturing factories) would be illegal, and speculated that the "discarded parts" would be "poisoning people", ergo "fair trade" was not possible.

In my emails to BAN over the years, I have offered to prove or certify that any electively replaced parts could be shipped for recycling to a place BAN approved, such as Japan or Belgium, which would solve that dilemma.

In responding for BAN, Jim said that he was aware of that option but that he did not want to promote it, because he distrusted and resisted globalization.  He said that no matter how hard we tried, that the nature of "exporting jobs" to poor countries meant exploitation.  In other words, whether or not I found a way that Basel Convention said was legal, that he objected based on his philosophy, that rich people who employ less rich people are exploiting them... something Karl Marx would say.

I told Jim that the "tested working" and "fully functional" and "accidental breakage" would require the same downstream diligence, that trading with poorer people, if inherently unfair, would extend to other trade, including sale of new devices, purchase of new devices, and certainly the mining of metals to make new devices.   Jim actually said he objected to those things too, but they were outside the scope of "waste" and therefore outside of his mission statement in Basle.   He didn't buy my suggestion that the big factories which certified the recycling of breakage, returns, and parts would be very valuable in the countries they were in. In fact, one WR3A member factory became a licensed take-back program for CRTs generated in that country.  If BAN killed them, and the majority of the e-waste disposed of in those countries originated there (See Williams/Kahhat study, referenced below), he'd be making e-waste worse...

So my point here is not to delve back into the specific arguments over the Basel Convention Annex IX, which explicitly says that export for repair is LEGAL... I'm just trying to demonstrate what Donald Summers, the BAN consultant, was referring to when he described "the genuine policy debate at issue" with personal attacks.  The general policy debate was about globalization and Marxist economics, not about whether contract manufacturing (e.g. Foxconn factories which make all IPhones and IPads) were mythical.

In the BAN web page articles above, on BAN's own website, BAN admits these factories are refurbishing.   And BAN negotiated terms for the semiknockdown factories with me, and BAN met some of the factory executives via Skype at E-Scrap 2010.   And BAN chose to support language allowing Manufacturers (OEMs) such as Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Samsung, etc. to continue to use the factories (which take warranty returns, for example) in the language of HR2284, the Responsible Recycling Act.  The factories are NOT MYTHS.

So Basel Action Network obviously knows these factories exist, and is willing to let OEMs use them, and is willing to let E-Steward Recyclers use them if certain parts are removed (like bad capacitors). BAN says nothing if the devices these SKD factories buy are tested working (in which case the parts are removed anyway) and sold to a middleman (but not directly to the factory).  If this is obvious and proven and not disputed, why do so many people I meet think that the genuine policy debate between R2 Certification and E-Stewards standard is about POISONING CHILDREN??????

Or is it about rape, murder, and arson?  (See BAN's depiction of ASU Professor Eric Williams below)...

“Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.”
― Groucho Marx

MYTHS in "E-Waste" Recycling: Chicago Defamation

Myths..  I was just approached yesterday about permission to re-print my Greenwala Editorial, Top Ten Common Myths About E-Waste.   My testimony to the Patch reporter about state of the art recycling in China was countered by BAN representative Don Summers thus:

Summers then criticized Ingenthron and Cade for promoting the "myth that there are all these wonderful high-tech facilities in China,' adding more harsh comments about Ingenthron's character.

In other words, while apologies should be accepted, beer with Obama and all, there remains a central dispute of fact about high tech recycling outside of the USA.  The defamation and character assassination is not against Robin, it's not against Brian, it's not against Willie.  It is against the geeks overseas, whom BAN seems to want to pretend to be mythical beasts.  They describe Africa, China, and Latin America as a kind of Heart of Darkness in recycling, they describe Guiyu's tech district as "E-waste Chernobyl".

See film of the people we are talking about below.

Mark Twain's Anti-Defamation Recipe

Mark Twain:  

"It's not what you don't know; it's the things you know, that are not so, that really get you."

http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/03/mark-twain-weighs-in-on-crt-e-waste.html

Crazy Defense Against A Defamation Suit?

Last week I sent a virtual "postcard" from Dallas, talking about character assassination, in reference to news articles by Chris Paicely of Patch.com.  Paicely did a pretty darn good job of covering the mutual defamation lawsuits between Basel Action Network, and the jilted E-Stewards applicant, Intercon Solutions.

Link to the original Chicago Patch articles here

Reporter Paicely describes the damage suffered by Intercon Solutions, but also gave BAN its due say.  He interviewed me in his final article.  The conclusion was that maybe exports aren't that bad afterall, and if they aren't, that it would be a shame if Intercon had told its clients they never exported.  There isn't very much about actual recycling in the articles... it's about people talking about recycling.

BAN had to respond, and another article appeared:

BAN vs. Intercon:  Watchdog Consultant Calls Export Supporter "A Really Crazy Guy"

Summers sent an email to Patch calling Ingenthron and Cade huge supporters of "dumping on poor people."

... Summers then criticized Ingenthron and Cade for promoting the "myth that there are all these wonderful high-tech facilities in China,' adding more harsh comments about Ingenthron's character.

"They will lie right through their teeth," Summers said. "It's amazing — I've seen it. Robin Ingenthron is known as a really crazy guy — sorry, I don't like dissing folks, but he is a huge outlier."

Summers went on to refer to Ingenthron and Cade as "green-washers," which are companies that falsely portray themselves as environmentally friendly. 

Yes, this is the same Donald Summers who threatened to sue me for libel a year ago ("BAN NGO Threats Lawsuit vs. Vermont #ewaste Blogger" - I was a whole percentage point off in describing E-Stewardship fees), and who found my first April Fools Day Episode of 2010 "scurrilous", "irritating" and "beneath contempt" (Ingenthron Hired By Basel Action Network).

Well, in Donald Summers' defense, he called me personally Monday morning prepared to eat serious crow.  He was doing the fully monty apology.  (It was, after all, a rather curious way to defend your organization when the headline is about DEFAMATION.)  I couldn't help it.  I want to help the guy out.

Huge Outlier

Now, am I crazy, or is this a potential breakthrough...?

Our company's response was to invite Don to visit us in Middlebury, and to speak with E-Stewards he trusts who have been to the "mythical" high tech facilities in China.  If the "big secret factories" don't exist, then get rid of the manufacturer and warranty in HR2284 exemption, I say.  If they do exist, then calling them a myth is the serious libel.  And if they exist, and have been seriously libelled, maybe that's what was driving me crazy.

My hope is that this could be a genuine moment of compromise.


Remember the Geeks of Color, and six billion people ("outliers" of the OECD).

"Because of Gordon Chiu (common export shipper to the Indonesia CRT refurbishing factory for both BAN accussee and BAN donor ), I had to defend the honor or the voiceless importers overseas.  Because of Joseph Benson, the Nigerian arrested for shipping used electronics - which were later found to be 85% good.   I was forced to choose friends I didn't want to choose between."

Open Postcard to E-Waste Watchdog Jim Puckett

 "You Are Here"  -DealeyPlaza_RoomWithaView

Dear BAN,

Two New articles appear this week from Chicago reporter Christopher Paicely, centering on Basel Action Network's role in accusing Intercon Solutions of shipping "toxic e-waste" overseas.

1) Protecting the Earth, Or...
2) Heights Company Builds Case Against Seattle Watchdog
3) Where E-Waste Lands: Stigmas, Laws and Truths (added)

It has come down to a lawsuit.  Why did it come down to this?

For Me:   Because of Gordon Chiu (common export shipper to the Indonesia CRT refurbishing factory for both BAN accussee and BAN donor ), I had to defend the honor or the voiceless importers overseas.  Because of Joseph Benson, the Nigerian arrested for shipping used electronics - which were later found to be 85% good.   I was forced to choose friends I didn't want to choose between.

My hotel has a view of Oswald's Book Depository window.  Dealey Plaza wasn't about character assassination, but I know people who deserve an apology, and if you ever want to find them and express your regrets, you know where to find me.  Character assassination isn't as bad as "poisoning people", you may say.  But character genocide has a different name, when the accusation is based on race and nationality.

Sincerely,

Robin

Friend Of The Court: BAN Defamation of Intercon

Below is why I think the case of defamation against Basel Action Network is long overdue.

The defamation case I'd suggest is as follows.  Whether or not Intercon exported hazardous waste, BAN did not know what exactly Intercon supposedly shipped at the time they notified China's EPA.  BAN also knows that China considers used tested working laptops to be hazardous waste.  BAN also knows, that when they broadcast the Chinese determination, that most people will assume the "crime" to be shipping raw unsorted junk, 80% waste, to a yard where children will burn it.  BAN knows about "profiling" the export market - because BAN invented the profile, and makes all their cash from it.

This may be Little Big Horn.  BAN may have finally bitten off more than they can chew.  The Intercon Case looks to me like STRIKE THREE vs. the Basel Action Network

It is Criminal in China to import "second hand" material.  The Chinese Communist Party owns factories which make new goods, and is not shy about enforcing its plans for obsolescence.  If BAN were a local activist group, they could be forgiven for making the assumption that an unknown - working laptop, repairable monitor, or bale of Christmas Tree lights, might be hazardous.  But they play it both ways, as the foremost most knowledgeable, certifying authority, and the well-meaning activist "just asking questions".

BAN shifts nimbly from legal expert, to paid representative, to a hyping watchdog.  In this particular case, of the Chicago Heights recycler, BAN knows that the container may have contained A) working equipment, B) scrap sent to an honorable professional recycler, or C) perhaps hazardous waste for children to burn... but BAN did not know which one when they made their announcement... because the Chinese source (whom they notified to inspect) makes NO distinction between these "second hand" goods.

In this particular case, when BAN informed the Chinese that Intercon had shipped the containerload, the determination by the Chinese official to call the second-hand goods (working, repairable, recyclable, or waste) a "hazardous waste" was a virtual certainty.

At a conference in Washington DC, EPA, Interpol officials met for a special session on "e-Waste" exports.  Jim Puckett was in attendance, and was a speaker.  On the same day, a speaker from the Sino EPA in Hong Kong spoke to the group in English.   He spoke about "green wastes", a listing China was going to propose to improve imports.  He also spoke about China's intention to stop "trans-boundary" movement of containers which change ships in Hong Kong's port.

[The latter was quite disturbing to me... China may be the competent authority for what is defined as "waste" and "hazardous" within China (though it may not, the courts in Hong Kong would allow a suit to bring Department of Commerce in to challenge a "non-commodity" or "non-property" ruling).  But for China to say it can declare a commodity to be "waste" when it is shipped from Party A to Party B, and enters the port of China (Party C) in transit, is an alarming precedent to announce.]

I raised my hand from the audience and was called on to ask a question.  It was a question I had asked Chinese EPA officials in Hong Kong a few years earlier.  I had been told that China identifies ANYTHING "second hand" to be waste.  I asked whether, if I brought a one-week old fully functional tested working laptop with me to China, and decided to give it as a gift to a Chinese host, whether my prior use of the laptop rendered it "waste" and "hazardous waste".  The Chinese Official (I can find his name) said I was right, it's an environmental crime.  That the laptop was second hand, and contained circuit boards, and therefore it would be an illegal transboundary movement in China.

Second-hand is defined as "waste" in China.  So a Chinese "discovery" of second hand equipment may sound  a lot worse than it is.  You just don't know until you get the contents of the container.

BAN's leader Jim Puckett was at this meeting, and he and I have had this discussion in person, and he knows full well that China would identify any tested working equipment as "hazardous waste".  According to his website, he's been an expert in these laws for over a decade.  By contrast, Basel Convention (Annex IX B1110) considers even non-working second-hand equipment to be potentially commodity and not waste (if sent for repair), and the USA considers the intent of the buyer and shipper in the determination.   BAN has its own definition involving removal of parts prior to repair (no one in the world does this, to my knowledge).  The point is that the "determination" is used by BAN in its press release to confuse journalists, just as they confused CBS, PBS, and Terry Gross about the "80%" of the world which generates half of all e-waste on their own.


BAN is an expert on these issues of determination and trade barriers, and yet claims they relied on the inspection of a Chinese authority in making a public announcement about Intercon.  BAN cannot claim not to know that the definition of the Chinese authority included non-hazardous and even working items.  (In fact there is a WTO lawsuit over China's use of environmental labels as a non-tariff trade barrier).   By telling China that Intercon had shipped a container, and that Intercon was a trader in second-hand electronics, BAN had basically set in motion a test which Intercon would fail no matter what the contents of Intercon's containers. If BAN didn't know the contents to start with, it was a reckless act to sick the Chinese enforcer on the container in the first place.  And the signs are that BAN couldn't wait to announce what they were going to announce... they launched at Intercon the same way as they launched at Asian and African businesspeople in the past.

China's interpretation of second-hand makes it a watchdog that bites everybody, criminals, children, and mailmen.  I know that, and BAN knows that.  But the American public is going to believe that there was a criminal involved, based on BAN's "information" that 80% of all USA second hand goods are wastes burned in primitive conditions.

Did BAN defame Intercon?  We know for a fact that BAN is in the defamation business.  It's what they do. They defame people every day... this was Strike 3.   Perhaps this time they defamed the wrong guy.