What Happens to Reuse Exports "Eventually"?

Test in VT, Refurbish in Asia, Sell w/ warranty in Egypt

We were recently asked this question, again, by an environmentalist.  She expressed doubt or concern whether the completely refurbished computers we help to provide were really an answer to "the e-waste problem".  Eventually, she said, the computers would go obsolete.  What happens when they become e-waste some day in the future?

I think we've answered the same question about a half dozen times.   For the record, before I repeat my answer (in GREEN below), here are the four questions I asked back but did not get a response to yet, but may.. eventually.

(To imagine the conversation a little better, first watch the John Cleese and Manuel duet, from BBC's Fawlty Towers, at bottom)

1. What happens if I shred this computer?  Will the African get a new one eventually?
2. What eventually happens when a brand new computer is donated to the poor country?  Should new computers be banned too?
3. What happens if people in the poor countries cannot get online?  Will they sooner have a recycling infrastructure ten years from now?
4. Would the USA live by the standard that you cannot sell technology (think of plasma TVs) until there is a recycling system in place for them?  Doesn't supply always precede the recycling investment?

Now, here is OUR ANSWER.  In the countries we sell working and reuseable CRTs to, we pay our partners to properly recycle any accidental breakage.  And the partners now take back an old junker for every piece they resell for reuse.  It's a "Monitors for Clunkers" program, and it resulted in a proper end market where none would have existed had Fair Trade Recycling been stopped.