How did the E-Waste Debate get where we are today? Containerloads of working Pentium 4s seized as "e-waste" by dictators, Technicians overseas forced to buy computers in back alleys, good USA E-waste recyclers withdrawing from international trade, under fear of being tarred as a polluter? Legislation introduced, making it illegal to sell computers back to the same factory that made them, to be refurbished for hospitals in Africa?
Here are some links to articles I wrote for Recycling Today, going back to 2002. Back then, I was disturbed by the idea of breaking off trade with recyclers overseas. The urban recyclers of Cairo, Jakarta, Guangzhou, and Lima are poor. But that doesn't make their top Geeks stupid, or their recycling worse. When a poor person works for me, am I "externalizing?" According to BAN, and Karl Marx, it is obviously so. IF a rich person trades with a poor person, it is exploitative. Ban Kiva.org, close the SBA. [Postscript see 2010 interview with Adam Minter in Planet Green - not even about reuse, the recycling alone may be worth the cost of exports].
What attracted me to electronics recycling was that the repair and reuse markets add multiple values - in other words, a win-win relationship which brings honest wealth, green good, and development to emerging markets. A kid in Accra or Luanda or Douala can, with his education and willingness to replace a transistor, turn an "e-waste" laptop from a negative externality into a month's pay and an affordable internet appliance.
Over the years, I've been less successful in promoting the idea of fair trade recycling than anti-globalization activists (in Seattle) have been of promoting a ban on the trade. I continue to write and promote my cooperative fair trade vision. And of late I've been frustrated by what I see as the advantages of the adversaries. And I'm proud to say that the most thoughtful people in the debate, if not the loudest, are listening.
The loudest, trying to all-capitalize the debate, and to drown out other prespectives with a scourge of dittos and re-tweets, have several advantages. (LIST)
Here are some links to articles I wrote for Recycling Today, going back to 2002. Back then, I was disturbed by the idea of breaking off trade with recyclers overseas. The urban recyclers of Cairo, Jakarta, Guangzhou, and Lima are poor. But that doesn't make their top Geeks stupid, or their recycling worse. When a poor person works for me, am I "externalizing?" According to BAN, and Karl Marx, it is obviously so. IF a rich person trades with a poor person, it is exploitative. Ban Kiva.org, close the SBA. [Postscript see 2010 interview with Adam Minter in Planet Green - not even about reuse, the recycling alone may be worth the cost of exports].
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Over the years, I've been less successful in promoting the idea of fair trade recycling than anti-globalization activists (in Seattle) have been of promoting a ban on the trade. I continue to write and promote my cooperative fair trade vision. And of late I've been frustrated by what I see as the advantages of the adversaries. And I'm proud to say that the most thoughtful people in the debate, if not the loudest, are listening.
The loudest, trying to all-capitalize the debate, and to drown out other prespectives with a scourge of dittos and re-tweets, have several advantages. (LIST)
