Lifecycle Analysis: CleanTech, "BrownTech", and Export Markets

What is the tension between "CleanTech" - e.g. a new hybrid car - and (what I'll call) "BrownTech"?  Repairing an older gas guzzler to run another year before mining, refining, consuming for new?

Early adapters proudly display their new CleanTech device.  As they should. By electively upgrading to a newer, environmentally-efficient device, they are sending signals to the market and to investors.  The early adapters are on the front lines, bringing the scalability (lowered cost and efficiency) to the new wind, solar, sustainable, recycled-content, non-toxic, etc. markets.

But being able to afford these elective #CleanTech upgrades is a privilege not shared by poor people, especially those in Emerging Markets (so-called "third world" countries).  For them, they are upgrading from a black and white 1967 television to a color 19" CRT.  From not having a phone at all to a flip Motorola.

The new #cleantech device trade shows are exciting.  So are ghetto repair shops. We are on the same spectrum of Life Cycle Analysis.  The differences are economic and cultural.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/Mariordo

PACE Yourself: Basel Logic of e-Waste Export

HP Blackbird 002 Crashes in the Dead of the Night.
An e-waste export crime in the making...

Basel Convention has a section on legal export which says that repairing electronics is not "Waste".  The ENGO Basel Action Network protested that from the beginning, but lost.  The ENGO now seeks to change this via a BAN "Amendment", calling the Convention as ratified as "an unfinished success story"...

In the meantime, while waiting for its amendment to be passed, BAN is fervently presenting the case that export for repair is indeed already waste.   While waiting to get its export-crime law passed, BAN is also trying to get "competent authorities" in importing countries to act as if repair is already illegal.

Blackbird crashing inthe dead of the night

The NGO has already been very successful when either A) the importing country manufactures new products and sees protectionism value in BAN's interpretation, or B) is a dictatorship trying to stop affordable internet.  89.7% of e-waste enforcement I've seen may be within one of these two categories [tic].  Now they are trying to get the interpretation enacted by USA Congress.   This is what HR 2284, the Green Thompson #Ewaste Bill, would do in the USA.

While waiting for export for repair to be made illegal, how is export for repair already in fact illegal?  BAN explains the logic, in their own words. From the BAN Library:

The Problems with WR3A: Dirty Business

The fair trade recycling ideas, started with WR3A in 2006, have been steadily growing in recognition.

We hit a bump (as everyone did) during the recession in 2009-2010.  Our WR3A model of cooperative marketing continued to be successful at funding end-of-life recycling at the back end of contract manufacturing (takeback) factories, ie using leveraged supply agreements to win improved processes overseas.   But we ran into three problems:

R2 Responsible Recycler Certification Vs. E-Stewards Certification: Synopsis

What is the difference between Responsible Recycler (R2) and E-Steward Certification?


There are already several posts this year about the technical aspects of the Basel Convention, EPA Export Rules, and differences in perspectives on "fully functional", "tested working", and "elective upgrade" of used computers and components.  A list with links follows below/bottom.


I've been involved with "legalese" since my days as a regulator.  When is a product "discarded"?  What is "original intended use"?  Does Basel Convention Annex IX allow an overseas buyer to "electively upgrade" (replace and improve parts) and refurbish?  What is "major reassembly"?


Dialogue with the groups opposed to international trade was rational and factual during the R2 Stakeholder meetings, and so continued when BAN.org organized a competing "E-Stewards" Certification program.  However, when BAN's marketing of that campaign, and of their views about the contract manufacturing or SKD facilities, turned negative, I became negative as well.  I hoped R2 Solutions and ISRI would continue the level headed dialogue with the protest organizations, and from time to time I could use the blog to express the opinions of "geeks of color", which was increasingly disgusted with the way Watchdog groups equated their elective upgrades with "primitive wire burning".

The central difference between E-Stewards and R2 comes down to this:  In non-OECD nations (China, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc.), can a material be legally recycled if no toxic constituents are released per Annex III? Who answers that question? The ayatollah of e-waste, or the competent authority (EPA)?    

For example, can a computer refurbisher in Singapore send upgraded circuit boards to Japan for refining, or send them to the same circuit board refiner in Singapore that off-spec newly manufactured product and warranty return product is sent? If so, the professional warranty-return, manufacturer takeback factory, in an ISO14001 factory, could keep its jobs, buy tested working product, and electively decide to replace working but worn parts, replace 110 volt boards for use in 220v countries, degauss cathode ray tubes for changes in hemispheric magnetic conditions, remove analogue boards and replace them with digital tuners, etc.



- R2 says yes but demands 3rd party certification that the non-reuse constituents were in fact legally recycled in a manner which did not result in release of Annex III constituents.

- E-Stewards says that even if the part is properly recycled, and no toxic is released, that the part must have been removed prior to shipment.