Farwell Chicas Bravas: How Bureaucracies, Virus and Bias Sunk a CRT Glass Solution

In My Opinion: Published in E-Scrap News

Photos below, article in link above.

Garrison and Olymbec's CRT Glass Mess 1: Throwing the Book at Closed Loop

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There's a CRT glass CERCLA lawsuit claim against 60 or so companies who chose not to pay demands by the landlord for Closed Loop Recycling and Recovery in Columbus, Ohio.

I informally consulted for OEMs on David Cauchi's CLRR processing operation from 2010, all the way until 2016. My company was one of the first to cease deliveries, before speculation occurred.  "No good deed goes unpunished," as the saying goes. Garrison South Park (GSP] and Olymbec not only named us anyway, but took information I've provided online over the years and introduced it to the court as evidence that my company was deliberately part of a sham to dump CRT glass on them.

Well, well, well... Their position is that we should have known something in 2011, from hundreds of miles away, which they still couldn't figure out in 2015 (when Olymbec leased CLRR a third warehouse), or when they appraised and purchased the original property (2013) while CLRR was operating inside. It's not like multimillion-dollar commercial landlords know anything about CRT recycling?

There are probably enough of these blogs on the subject of CRT recycling since 2007 to pass as a Ph.D thesis.  Here are some important questions for the CLRR, Olymbec, Garrison South Park case.

Where did the (e-Stewards certified) Creative Recycling CRT Glass Go?  
Where did the (e-Stewards certified) 2TRG CRT Glass Go?
Where did (e-Stewards certificed) Kuusakoski get the CRT glass delivered to Columbus?
Who does GSP plan to pay to remove it?
Where will it go next?

How many landlords will have had this on their property, and how many times will recyclers have to settle the costs, before it's over?

Bullyboy 9: Authority Without Borders

"Be Quiet!  I order you to be quiet!" 

- Arthur, King of the Britons, (Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

As I wrap up the "Bullyboys" case for exoneration of African traders, we are left with a simple question of authority.  Jim Puckett told me directly, a few years ago, to "stop referring people to Annex IX of the Basel Convention."  (the section that makes export for recycling, and repair, legal - so long as it isn't dumping).   It was in the form of an order.  Basel Convention was his "turf".   He drew a line and told me not to cross.

"The Magna Carta Action Group."
"The Declaration of Independence Action Network."
"The Bill of Rights Action Center."


There are lots of authoritative names a small, underemployed environmentalist can bestow himself.  Most Americans wouldn't fall for the "Associations" above.  But if you select the name of a Swiss Treaty, and say "international law" enough times, you may even get an informed journalist to report your press release as something from an authority.

Ill defined legal systems produce bullyboys.

King Arthur: I am your king.  Woman: Well I didn't vote for you. King Arthur: You don't vote for kings. Woman: Well how'd you become king then? [Angelic music plays... ] King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king. Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. 

The difference between an authority and a bullyboy?  Law. Courts. Constitutions.  Consensus.   And the problem in this whole case is that there is little in the way of an international court system.  Lacking international law, and fed fake numbers by BAN.org, Europeans have reverted into bully justice.

Granted, true international law is more orderly.  I've been to the the Hague, I've been to Strasbourg.  But these are very busy places to get into.  If you are arrested in Britain for a crime you are not even accused of committing where it didn't occur in Nigeria, and think you can find a place on the International Court Docket, go buy a Megabucks lottery ticket, right now.

Laws only "happen" inside borders.  The police or Stewards or regulators who enforce international "law" are enforcing something that is extra-juridicial.   That's why treaties have to be "ratified", to give them status of law inside the borders of a nation with laws and courts and police.   Inside a border, giving "international" law to a policeman, there is otherwise no constitutional basis for appeal.

Your sole appeal is to the bully-boy.