The COVID-19 Bottom Line: Some Societies Can Afford To Insure The Elderly. Some Can't.

This will be brief, and I don't want to "bury the story" yesterday about concrete things recyclers in wealthy societies can do to preserve their businesses.

Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter just published a big truth. In some of the 7 billion people world, there is enough stimulus to finance "flattening the curve". In other places, there is not.

A Refreshing "Victimless, Villainless" Assessment of E-Waste in Chennai India: Naveed Ahmed Sekar

Mobile Consumption and Disposal in Chennai Metropolitan Region India (2017 Naveed Ahmed, Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany)

This short analysis of "e-waste" phones in the rapidly emerging market of Chennai (Tamil Nadu), India, is the kind of abstract approach that could make a good model for other products and other cities.  

Once again, it shows the "circular economy" is heliocentric, and does not revolve around Europe.  Telephones sold to families in India (4 phones average per household in Chennai) are not thrown into the sea.  The secondary market is not "competing against" the legitimate scrap market.

Instead, Naveed shows the issue is reluctance to let go of devices. When people remember the purchase as a great sacrifice, they hesitate to believe it is eventually worth only the sum of its raw materials.  This leads to the same "hoarding" documented by Massachusetts DEP in the 1990s.

Today's Presentation at CES Las Vegas

 

Today I make my pitch for Fair Trade Recycling

Product Refurbishment and Reuse in the Developing World: What is its Current and Future Role in the CE Industry?

Thursday, January 12, 2012 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

LVCC, North Hall N264

In developing nations, refurbishment and reuse activities are a major part of local CE industries.
How do refurbishment operations meet local consumer demand? How do they affect the environment?
Will new, lower-priced technologies put these operations out of business, or could they become global
go-to locations for operations like warranty repair?

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Moderator(s): 

• Willie Cade – PC Rebuilders & Recyclers, LLC.

Panelist(s): 

• Robin Ingenthron – Good Point Recycling
• Adam Minter – Journalist
• Amr Sheira – CompuMe Egypt
• Douglas Smith – Sony Electronics Inc.

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