Showing posts with label hoax. Show all posts

Recycling Is Not a "LIE": Part 3. Alexander Clapp says I'm an Expert?

Waste Wars: A Journey Through the World of Globalized Trash

Forthcoming from Little, Brown & Company

Try out this logic.

"Health Care Is a LIE, because everyone receiving health care will eventually die".

So I just found out that Alexander Clapp, author of the NYTimes Opinion editorial saying that Recycling Is a Lie, quotes me personally as an expert. Page 135.

Yet, he does not respond to my direct messages, offers to dialogue, or follows (Linkedin, BlueSky, XTwitter)... So I'm following his posts and will buy a used copy of his book when it is available, but this "Health Care Is a Lie" logic is patently false.

The 2006 NIH Report by Charles Schmidt, where the misleading quote is pulled from, was based on a trip I made to Asia 20 years ago with Total Reclaim of Seattle president Craig Lorch, and native (2nd generation) Mandarin speaker Lin King of WR3A.org and University of California (recycling program manager). I had not been to Africa since 1987, and was trying to explain to Mr. Schmidt that the HUGE CONTRACT MANUFACTURERS IN ASIA - SUBCONTRACTORS FOR DELL, HP, ETC. were certainly not importing 80% waste. When he asked about Africa importers, I knew that they were not running 50+ huge factories with up to 1500 employees, 3 shifts a day, seven days per week. And during that interview, I was also trying to remain friends with Mr. Jim Puckett who was making the (false) claim that 80% of used electronics trade violated the Basel Convention.

AFTER this interview with NIH Schmidt, the following occured.

1. I went to visit our buyers in Africa - with my whole family - and learned that they were Tech Sector professionals who knew WAY more about the electronics they were purchasing than USA recyclers did.

2. I sent multiple emails to the 2006 study author between 2006 (when I complained about the coverage even then) leading right up to 2013, when I invited him to attend the Middlebury Fair Trade Recycling Summit. See email to the author at bottom, with the list of speakers and experts meeting to discuss the "e-waste hoax" BAN had by that time created.

3. 2013 was the year Jim Puckett of BAN disavowed his own claims in the 2006 Charles Schmidt NIH study - actually claiming he had never ever made the 80% illegal export claims.

In a sample email to Schmidt copied above, I was imploring him to update the 2006 study I'm quoted from, and he submitted my offer to his editor at NIH, who in 2011 turned it down. Instead, Adam Minter that year visited multiple importers (and domestic Chinese e-waste buyers) for his book, Junkyard Planet. Which like his second book, Secondhand, interviewed me and our WR3A members directly and on multiple occasions visited them.

Certification and Racketeering: Part 2 The Guardian Deceit

Definition: RACKETEERS OFFER A DECEITFUL SERVICE TO FIX A PROBLEM THAT OTHERWISE WOULDN'T EXIST.

"We don't want to have to go after you." - JP to yours truly during California Compromise negotiations in 2010.

"I'm not hiding anything, and don't think much of your threats" - My response.

Basel Action Network "goes after" people through the press. This week, The Guardian's environmental desk proves just how easy that is. Sandra Laville's headline "UK worst offender in Europe for electronic waste exports - report" diligently puts out the hit, failing to interview a single African or Asian technician or importer.

Free Joe "Hurricane" Benson, much?

Mistaking Africa's Tech Sector (importers) for Africa's Scrap Sector (city wheelbarrow scrap collectors) is like mistaking a surgeon for a janitor because he's black. The only proof BAN provides is a photo of a janitor.

There are several other really really simple things to find on the internet which should have given The Guardian's editors pause. I'll tick them off briefly, but stick to the point. BAN has created a problem that wouldn't otherwise exist (false reporting, sabotaged equipment, fake statistics) for the purpose of generating millions of dollars from BAN E-Stewards. BAN not only threatens companies that don't pay them, but makes examples out of those of us who defend the Geeks of Color. It is the valedictorians in the Tech Sector who suffer the worst consequences of BAN's sabotage.

BAN doesn't just sabotage their equipment. It sabotages their reputation, and the reputation of anyone with the courage to trade with them, rather than boycott them. (In Part III, we'll look at who finances this sabotage).

Circular Economy PowderFinger

Hey, I've written a whole lot of words about images.

Here's some sound. Neil Young's "Powderfinger", performed by Cowboy Junkies, seemed to describe red state hillbilly moonshiners. But the words and expressions hauntingly tell the story of Africa's Tech Sector, accused of "e-waste crimes" by NGOs, shredding companies, regulators, some manufacturers, and many European journalists.

For Our New German Blog Readers: See You in Salzburg

The number of blog visits is up in 2016, compared to 2015. Hopefully that is a sign that I've been engaged more relevant topics. Views from Europe, India and Africa grew in number and duration.

"Why We Should Ship Our Electronic 'Waste' To China and Africa" ran in Motherboard Vice five years ago. Klaus N. read it in Germany and decided to do a piece on it for 3Sat (German language equivalent of PBS, I'm told, which broadcasts in several countries). That led to a pretty steady dozen or so readers in West Europe. This year, the number is close to 100.

Some of the attention is probably "reflected from the mud". Kevin McElvaney published the arm-flailing Mike Anane's absurd claims about Agbogbloshie ("the biggest e-waste dump on earth") Sodom and Gomorrah? Fishing as a Boy?..."), which led to interviews in all kinds of German news, and led to a flurry of follow up visits to Ghana by other aspiring documentarians. A textbook case of photojournalism running off the reservation without a hint of datajournalism to support it. The posts here which provide links to World Bank and other data seem attractive to the photographically inspired.

In any case, Fair Trade Recycling is now a curiosity, if not a known quantity, in Europe. I'm preparing my presentation for ICM, 16th International Electronics Recycling Congress IERC 2017 in Salzburg, Austria, where I will sit side by side with Jim Puckett of Basel Action Network on a panel in front of hundreds of European regulators and researchers.

Landscape shot of the small small site at Agbogbloshie where close ups of kids perched on monitor casings takes place

I offered to do a presentation on how incredibly small and insignificant our topic is. How bland, how navel gazing our concerns are from the perspective of the slum dwellers we wring hands and handkerchiefs about. The background of the landscape photo I took shows the Old Fadama slum in central Accra. The dump is across the lagoon. And the most photographed, if not the largest, ewaste dump on earth is there in the center, on this side of the lagoon.

No kidding, folks. This is it for wire burning. I got photos of photographers on that tiny, barren spot, posing young slum ruffians on top of some of the few dozen devices found scattered on the lagoon bank. See the "close up" of the same site at bottom... same tent in the background.

Above is another (landscape) view of this exact site and the 25 people burning wires there. Note tent behind girl

African "E-waste" Witch Hunt Continues: Part 2

I have the account of Mark Daniels. I have the account of Joe Benson. I'm looking for Ezenwa Ogbonnaya and M2 Ventures Limited ... That will make 3 UK electronics recycling companies who were tried in the press.

Daniels Recycling prosecuted for African WEEE export

In Part 1, as well as the "Sodom and Gomorrah" blog, we traced the outrage and arrests back to two men, Jim Puckett and Mike Anane.

That Agbogbloshie was a very large e-waste dump... perhaps "biggest in the world"
That the Odaw River was a pristine, green African "Eden" just a decade ago, "teeming with fish"
That the lead in the soil at the dump does not come from automobiles, but from dumped electronics
That 80% of the electronics shipped to Ghana are "junk" and the other 20% "fail after between 2 and 6 months"
That most of the work done at Agbogbloshie is by children, orphans, under age 18
That the majority of workers at AGbogbloshie die of cancer in 2 years.

Well, well, well... this is the information that was recited by Anane and Puckett at an Interpol meeting I attended at EPA offices in Arlington VA in March 2010. Puckett and Anane were introduced by the UK's Environmental Agency head, Lord Chris Smith.

These horrible "e-waste facts" were also recited to Raphael Rowe of BBC in "Panorama".

If half of the "e-waste facts" were half true, it would indeed be understandable that the Environmental Agency prosecuted Joe Benson, Mark Daniels, and Ezenwa Ogbonnaya for dumping - or rather selling - used electronics to Africa's Tech Sector.

But the accusers, the prosecutors, never met anyone in Africa's Tech Sector, did they?

#EWASTEGATE #COLLATERALDAMAGE #AGBOGBLOSHIE #WORLDREFUGEEDAY

"He that beats the drum for the mad man to dance is no better than the mad man himself." – African proverb

It began as a simple problem. Ghana household teledensity (TV, internet, cell phone) is increasing like wildfire, two and three digit growth, year on year. Ghana residents mostly afford this with used devices cherry picked from Western depots by African expats. The most recent study (Secretariat Basel Convention) estimated that Ghana imported 215,000 Tons of second hand electronics goods (including refrigerators, microwaves, as well as PCs, TVs). The study concluded that about 90% of these were reused or repaired. 21,500 tons not reused were added to the estimated 129,000 tons junked by Ghana residents after years of use. The fallout rate for used electronics is actually less than new electronics, according to Ghana technicians, explaining consumer preferences.

However, well-intentioned NGOs like Blacksmith Institute, Greenpeace and BAN used the statistics above to imply that "western companies" dumping on Africa was the cause of the toxics problem. Professional photographers (Fedele, Hugo, Bellini, McElvaney, etc.) used close-ups of scrap workers and odd Biblical references like "Hell" and "Sodom and Gomorrah" to scare people into a pledge campaign to boycott Africa technicians.

The "Sodom and Gomorrah" references to Agbogbloshie are a biblical reference, and the "E-Waste Hell" photos of Old Fadama are everywhere on Twitter, Facebook, in newspapers and magazines. Fellow environmentalists discovered a white-guilt honeypot. They found easy grant money, and crossover support from environmentalists and social activists on the "common ground" of not "polluting the poor". But look what transpired...

1. Create widespread citation of fake dumping statistic.

"Approximately 80% of electronic waste currently delivered to recyclers is actually exported to developing countries."

"The dirty little secret is that when you take [your electronic waste] to a recycler, instead of throwing it in a trashcan, about 80 percent of that material, very quickly, finds itself on a container ship going to a country like China, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Pakistan — where very dirty things happen to it," says Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basel Action Network, which works to keep toxic waste out of the environment.

Makes it easy to imagine 50,000,000 tons going into a scrapyard - by hand pushcart - without a driveway.

2. Take pics of Tire burning

Homer Simpson Voice: OOOOOooooo! Fire!

3. Tell simple story about nameless faceless White Exporters

4. Ignore actual African Importers, Techs of Color

5. Ignore true statistics (93% Reuse) when Techs ARE interviewed

5. Hide when Collateral Damage is documented

Photos of Agbogbloshie homes being destroyed June 2015

Twitter photo from Ab

‏@AbdallaIbn

@BBCAfrica @USEmbassyGhana the people look on helplessly as their homes are crashed in #OldFadama #Agbogbloshie 

Did enviros conspire with land grabbing developers to evict thousands of homes of scrapper families in Old Fadama / Agbogbloshie? Of course not.

But we played into a propaganda war over the increasingly valuable property. It would have been expensive for AMA and developers to buy it. Easier to find a reason / excuse for teargas and military evactuation.

"They are unChristian outsiders, Dagomba tribe are settlers, Sodom and Gomorrah"

"They caused the flooding which killed 150 people in May"

"They import electronic waste from other countries and burn it, poisoning us"

I had no clue about the property issue when I went to Agbogbloshie. I was surprised how close it was to the most expensive developments in all of Ghana. When I saw less than 1,000 tons (not 215,000 tons, and certainly not "most" of the world's millions of tons of ewaste), all home scrap, I asked the scrappers why anyone would repeat this? I thought maybe, for grant money.

The Dagbani speaking scrappers had another theory about the lie.

They said it was about their land. People wanted it but did not want to pay for it. And sure enough, soon after they were being blamed for importing waste, for causing floods, and for being un-Christian... the teargas and bulldozers came. It looked pretty bad, and I had no idea this was going to happen so quickly.

I'm not very popular with some environmental groups right now.

But see, I'm doing us all a favor.

When someone in our "tribe" of do-gooder environmentalists attacks someone innocent, they draw negativity against our tribe that can affect many generations. Standing up against "friendly fire" is not disloyal, is not profiteering, is not damaging. I'm taking bullets for this but I really believe this is the right thing to be documenting, and am asking friends to retweet our messages of support for the "geeks of color".

#freejoebenson
#whitesaviorcomplex
#povertyporn
#accidentalracism
#unintendedconsequences
#geeksofcolor
#worldrefugeeday
#Agbogbloshie

‏@WR3A

#Agbogbloshie wire recycler Awal. "They tell lies about us importing waste. All home scrap from Accra." Why? "Land" 

There are truths about Agbogbloshie and there are lies. What's really scary is the number, volume, direction of lies. 

For a well written history of the land dispute by Josh Lepawsky and Grace Akese of Memorial University (Geography), read this "Discard Studies" essay, just published.

50 million tons per year to this small scrapyard? Let's see, that's 50,000 tons per day, at 25kg per TV/PC... Gee, Guardian, short on editors? But hey, it's Africans, don't sweat the easy calculator stuff.

You reprinted two of three propaganda tropes about the minority Dagbani, a Muslim minority in Accra, saying they go by "Sodomites" and that they handle 5 million scrap televisions per DAY. You just needed to say they were responsible for the flooding.

Growth of Internet users in Nigeria (Quartz)

"E-waste Crimes in Ghana" 10: A Convenient Lie in Agbogbloshie

Fritz Lang's Metropolis film inspired Joeseph Goebbells, Adoph Hitler's Nazi propagandist, to try to hire him for the white supremacy movement. What "e-waste" film documentaries should learn from Lang.

So, have we all enjoyed the photos of fire and sweaty young recycling men? Have we proven that we care? Have we validated our recycling credentials, proven our concern, certified out downstreams, and licensed our morality?

Fritz Lang's Metropolis inspired Goebbels

Not wanting to boycott reuse technicians in Tamale does not mean we care less than you do about wire burners in Accra who are exposed to toxic soil. Hopefully, my concern justifies my own photos. Because that's what Agbogbloshie is. It's a photo backdrop. Just a nice mashup of shantytown, smoke, gadget debris and glistening muscles. It has become a cheap movie set for #ewastehoax propaganda.

The Tamale reuse workers not only support themselves, they usually support several others in their Dagbani speaking tribe who could otherwise feel forced to move to Agbogbloshie (Accra), Ghana to burn wires. And their scrap brothers in Agbogbloshie support not only themselves, but their own children, siblings, and parents.

This is ultimately addressed to Lord Chris Smith, because the UK has given itself a special role as "steward" of the Dagbani and the secondary market in West Africa. He has proven his environmental credentials by circulating stories about the "largest e-waste dump on earth", the "most toxic recycling on earth", and has issued press releases crowing about Mighty Joe Benson.

Clang go the prison bars.

Yet clang, clang, clang go the Agbogbloshie scrap metal workers. Stop all the exports, arrest every #freejoebenson... Yet the beat goes on.

"eWaste Crimes in Ghana" Part 8: BAN, Blacksmith Hoax Costs EU $1,200,000

In case you missed it, here was the "good news" headline from 6 months ago (August 2014)

The purple text is my addition, by the way.

More purple underlines (article continues below)

On Monday or Tuesday, Emmanuel Nyaletey, Wahab Odoi, Wahab's cousin Peter and I will head back again to Agbogbloshie just to make sure we got this straight. What we photographed 10 days ago is supposedly the site which has received $1.2M in EU funds.

Below is my amateur film of the place where the 20-50 units (monitors, TVs, PCs) per day were getting their wires removed. (199 view limit on Youtube until I have to black out unpermissionedfaces).

I address the purple underlined "great white savior hoax" in the article above. It's the most ridiculous thing ever seen on planet earth.

I'll be back there this week, if you have questions for the 27 people in Agbogbloshie who carry 446,000 pounds, minimum (2M tons for "millions" of tons) every day to burn it. That's per person, per day. With unpowered hand-carts.

Truly the most outrageously exotic site BAN.org has ever "uncovered".

The video is not complete, it is a preview, I have to edit out faces I don't have permission from after 199 views. Though its quite ironic the people who didn't give permission...

"E-Waste Crime in Ghana" Day 3: Port Tema Scene of Crime?

I'm falling behind, it will be 7 days as of tonight, and I won't bother writing up every day of the trip. But the third day was also a long one. We went to watch the containers being unloaded, at the Port of Tema / Ghana Port Authority. Then we went to meet some personalities in the e-scrap realm in Ghana (some by accident).

We thought we'd have time to stop at the Ghana EPA in the morning before heading to Tema Port authority with the USA reporter. The traffic was so tough it took nearly a half hour to circle the block looking for parking, and we were 41 kilometers from Tema, where the sea containers arrive.

There is a lot of open land (and wetlands, we saw fresh eels for sale by fishermen along the highway) between Tema Port and Agbogbloshie. You can experience the drive on youtube, compare Accra traffic from the 1950s, and even see about the big, big plans for a monorail.

2015 "Ewaste Crimes" in Ghana: Day 2

In 1985, when I lived in Cameroon, and visited a large city like Yaounde or Douala, crossing the street was not too difficult. As you stood at the corner and watched vehicles go by, it looked something like this...

Taxi. Taxi. Taxi. Truck. TaxiVan. Taxi. Taxi. Mercedes. TaxiVan. Taxi. Truck...

Here in Accra, capital of Ghana, thirty years later, things have changed.

Taxi. Toyota. Honda. Truck. Taxi. Mercedes. Infiniti. TaxiVan. Truck. Taxi. Truck. Jaguar. Truck, Hyundai, Taxi, GMC, Taxi, Taxivan, Truck, Nissan, Toyota.... and the sentence goes on and on for half a page.

We were on our way to the "scene of the crime". The place Blacksmith Institute placed at the top of their list of most toxic places on the planet. Where Frontline interviewed Jim Puckett, describing the place where "most" of the world's e-waste goes. Where Mr. Mike Anane says 500 sea containers per month arrive for primitive dumping. Where several sources describe, and I quote, "Millions of tons of e-waste per year" are dumped and burned. The site described by Joe Benson's prosecutor as "common knowledge" that 80 percent (that #$%$ stat) winds up after Benson exported it.

I will have to upload some of the photos later.

Millions of tons (I actually had to edit that claim out of Wikipedia and identify the source had misquoted a study saying that was the world's generation, and then applied 80% literally to Agbogbloshie). That's 60 to 90 million CRTs, if it's at least 2 million tons.

(I took about 150 photos, but most of my photos were of the photographers... I'll talk about why. The shots are too big to upload here from my Ghana pocket wifi Vodaphone transceiver. Some from Fair Trade Recycling e-waste reform Facebook Page).

There were about 50 people, including myself and an American and two European reporters and my friends who took us there - my Ghana Geek pal Wahab, two of his cousins (all from same tribe and locale as the teenagers at the dump) and a lawyer and import agent. About 25 of them were "on the job".

Agblogblogshie: E-Waste Tsunami Covers Sodom-Gomorah in Understated Hell

Agbog-blog-shie Unplugged: E-Waste Tsunami Covers Sodom & Gomorah in Understated Hell

Starved of facts and nuance, reports from African city of Accra - found on verge of catastrophe.

[BSNewsire, Accra, Ghana April 1 2015]

Longtime a skeptic of "ewaste" dumping claims, WR3A Founder Robin Ingenthron arrived in Ghana last Sunday, and was shocked to find the situation far graver than he imagined.

"It began when our Delta Airlines flight was unable to land," said Ingenthron. "We could see the junk televisions from 4,000 meters above Accra. They were scattered in stacks, up to 90 feet high, on the runway and tarmac, and along the highway."

The Agbogbloshie dike, which separated greater Accra from the largest collection of electronic waste on the planet, had broken. Teenagers could be seen pouring out of the Agbogbloshie fences, trying to regather the discarded computers and televisions. But as fast as the kids worked to burn them, a tsunami of CRT televisions continued to spout through the gates, covering the streets of Accra and stalling traffic.

Ingenthron and other passengers were dropped via small white parachutes, like baby Dumbos, into the zoo of e-waste. From the ground, the confessed electronics reuse kingpin came face to face with the toxic consequences of his "reuse excuse".

As reported in The Guardian, by Greenpeace, and at weather.com, "millions of tons" of obsolete electronics arrived in Agbobloshie each year. At 34 units per ton, or 102 million TVs and monitors per year, 279,452 pieces had to be burned each day, keeping the 27 scrap boys who work in Abogbloshie on double shifts. American households throwing away an average of 2.8 TVs per day are blamed for the mess. Unfortunately, faced with the relatively small fires and lack of lighter fluid, the scrap boys had allowed a tinderbox of 10 decades of throwaways to amass.

E-Waste Hoax 2015: PKDs Myth Busting Trip To Africa

Ok readers, you know my thing. Be that guy.

"All right then, I'll go to hell."

Winston Churchill Quote that having enemies means you stood up for something once in your life.

Now, how do I announce the trip I'm planning this morning, without setting myself up as the next generation of exotic #whitesaviorcomplex hero, cruising to Africa, to visit geeks of color who've visited me in Vermont? Visiting People I've done a little bit of business with, though without much profit to show for it.

Actually, this business (both African trade, and "being that guy" who stands up for it) has cost my business and my employees tremendous stress. And we have to ask ourselves, how seriously should we take junk? Someone threw it out once already, how long will they want to be forced to think about it again? And how can my clients support hiring us, having seen the PKDs? (see below).

PKD Africa 2007: Photo I couldn't resist taking on my last trip to Africa

New Orleans non-for-profit public school - Ruby Bridges 1960 - Happy Birthday

Do not mistake "margins" for greed. Having a margin, or "profit", on a transaction is like insurance. Someday you will have another transaction... an unintended loss, or a call for help. Your margin allows you to have a positive impact on other peoples lives (employees, creditors, family). Things don't always go as planned. There is no place that's more true than Africa.

In the words of an old chum at the University of Arkansas, here's how most of us see wealth.

'I see dollars kind of like I see calories. When I see a person who doesn't get enough calories, who's skinny and weak, it makes me uncomfortable. It's unattractive. When I see someone who's getting more calories then they need, I kind of see it like an obese person. It's unattractive. I like to be around healthy people who make enough money.' - Bertrand X?, friend at U of A

But there is an entire group of people who think "profit" is "likely bad". They are anti-globalist. And they often seek out a once-obscure federal tax statute to "certify" business partnership.

"Your company is for profit. I work for a non-profit. You shouldn't charge me recycling fees."

I made more money working for non-profits than I have made running a small business, and I have helped more disadvantaged people with my business than I helped working in the not-for-profit sector. I'll demonstrate that later. But using a tax code to predict environmental outcomes was a key ingredient in the decade's "e-waste tragedy". I'm not going to attack non-profits, but the belief that the tax status is necessary or sufficient to predict best behavior will attract wolves in sheeps' clothing.

Why do people attach a moral fetish to a federal corporate income tax filing statute? What's with the obsession over corporate filings, as an indicator of morality? Why are some people more suspicious when I take my personal savings, buy a truck, drive it for income, and pay taxes on that income? What makes a federal tax category more "honest" and more "trustworthy" than a small business?

Hurricane Joe Benson (#FreeHurricaneBenson) spent years on appeal before concluding he couldn't fight "City Hall."

"In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake." - Sayre's Law (Wallace S. Sayre)

In a small pond, big fish are kings. And intellectuals talking about a rather obscure niche of world recycling policy have become empowered by the smaller audience. You learn that the proportionality of Sayre's principle cuts both ways... the big stakes questions about recycling policy go "whoosh" over the heads of local decision makers. And the small contracts, small business disputes, small business accusations, and "people from third world countries", can whip City Hall into a frenzy.

Game Theory is the study of strategic actions in multi-decision-maker scenarios. Game Theorists may use math - especially statistics - to predict how the number of actors involved in a decision affect the outcome. Or they may measure the wealth of the outcome, and how its control affects the behavior of stakeholders and decision makers. Look at it this way - the strategy and outcome of a game of RISK is affected by the number of players. If you have six players, a goal of controlling a continent is much more difficult to achieve than a game with three players. If you get to keep the cards of an eliminated player, timing that player's elimination (so you execute their final play and get their cards) becomes more important than the extra pieces you achieve by controlling a continent.

As players are eliminated, the sea of stakeholders gets smaller and smaller. The stakes in the economy, per player, get larger.

[Note: I'm on my way to New Orleans for the Recycling Innovators Forum... leaving in 20 minutes.]

A small set of stakeholders interested in an outcome starts to resemble a "small pond", as goals and perspectives become less diverse. This in turn defines the law, or the rules about behavior concocted by the remaining participants. But as the economy or stakes become greater, more people want to play at the table. This "game theory" analysis explains a lot about electronics recycling policy, perhaps so much that no one even notices the lack of actual data on the "risks" to be mitigated. Free and fair trade is almost presumed guilty, and in a rush to make rules, any rule may do. And the rules are being made by a small group of players: OEMs, Big Shred, Poverty Pornographers, and the contract managers at City Hall.

Take an online game of poker, with real cash stakes, with players on 5 continents. A vote comes up, which lettering to use on the playing cards, Chinese characters or western Arabic?

Australia, Europe, North America, and South America vote against the Asian card numbering... and like the JDowsett's Ferguson-themed Racism by Bike Blog, the game is subtly biased in a way that a Western observer won't even notice. Language is in many ways a better lens than color or bike-vs.-car for studying how majority behavior dictates systems. Debating use of language used at "City Hall" is a better study for "tyranny of the majority", perhaps, than calling darker skin a "minority" in a world geography, precisely because it takes us away from "You're not Trayvon" jingoism.

Apparently, I'm now defending JDowsett and the Racism by Bicycle Blog. But I'm also trying to demonstrate how finger-pointing do-gooders can create a carnage of collateral damage in a rush to make rules they haven't the time to vet. Primum non nocere ... first, do no harm.

I have about 30 pages of blogs composed this summer, but the challenge is to update them as fast as the news changes.

Sometimes it's easier to point back at past predictions...
In the past year or so (not in order, and some still "breaking" news).

1. BAN denies "80% waste" statistic (denies ever saying it).
2. Peer reviewed studies from USITC, MIT, Memorial U, ASU, UNEP, etc. show 85-91% reuse.
3. Benson is reportedly released early #freehurricanebenson
4. Lord Chris Smith (UK Environmental Agency director) is replaced.
5. Vermont ANR terminates contract with CRT-landfill operation early.
6. Payment refused to local governments may be released.
7. Interpol may have hit the "pause" button on Project Enigma / Eden (unconfirmed)
8. A stampede of Europeans emerging from the trenches in Agbogbloshie to testify...

E-WASTE HOAX - NOT AS "BAN" ADVERTISED.

"Do not know what they are talking about. Making it up as they go along."

From the Front Lines: African Technicians Jailed in England

On my way to Lyon, France, home of Interpol. Lots of blogging in the draft folders. But let's keep things simple. Joe Benson of BJ Electronics was a technician of color accused by BBC and Skynet and Lord Chris Smith of the EA of wastecrime. He was sentenced after years of appeals (which cost him more than paying the fine, I'm told). And now he's in jail. White environmentalists can sleep easier, knowing the black geeks aren't burning their iPhones in "witches brews" of e-waste toxics stirred by children.

What does Africa see?

1. Teeming cities in the emerging markets generate tens of thousands of tons of municipal solid waste. e.g. Economist 2.2014 "Nigeria’s sprawling megacity, Lagos, with a population of 21m or so, disgorges 10,000 metric tonnes of waste a day."

2. Cities in Africa and China have had CRT televisions and monitors for decades and decades. World Bank 2006 statistics show Nigeria already had 6.9M households with TV.

3. The cost of shipping a containerload of used CRT televisions from England to Africa costs, per television, more than four times the value of the copper that can be recovered from the TV. A trader to Africa loses money on every junk TV shipped.

4. Plastic shrink wrap does not have any significant effect on the damage to CRTs shipped to Africa. It's purely cosmetic.

5. Independent EU and African consultants examined hundreds of the sea containers with used electronics seized in African ports and during a 2 year study funded by the UN, found 91% reuse, better than brand new product.

6. Greenpeace and Skynet had to pay 20 times scrap value to get their television with the tracking device back out of the African market.

7. Arrest and imprisonment of THEIR Michael Dell, Simon Lin, Terry Gou... the same tinkerer-refurbishing economy that built Singapore, Shenzhen, Taiwan and Inchion is "forbidden fruit" to Africa under "Project Eden".

I have the documentation used to convict and sentence Hurricane Joe Benson to 16 months is prison. They did NOT test his TVs, did NOT allow repair to be considered.

My thesis is that there is no evidence to justify Benson's experience except the following.

A. Basel Action Network made up a hoax statistic that 80% of the electronics exported were scrapped by "primitive" Africans.
B. Interpol in 2009 accepted BAN's statistic, reprinted it as an official guidance document despite 0 evidence of the statistic.
C. Interpol did discover (expressing surprise) that the shipments were not paid for by EU waste companies to avoid disposal costs, but that the electronics were purchased by Africans ("waste tourists") for far more than the value of the scrap, that the Africans refused to buy most of the electronics they could have purchased, and that after purchasing the electronics for more than scrap value, the Africans paid shipping and customs duties on each piece. Interpol's Emile Lindemulder described the trade as "organized" and (see A) therefore "organized crime".

Following twitter (via Adam Minter) I ran across an editorial/blog in my favorite periodical, The Economist. I've linked to some well researched articles in the Economist here in the blog, e.g. about emerging markets and urban development. I continue to subscribe, buy subscriptions as gifts, and hold The Economist in high regard.

But holy cow... what kind of 2008 garbage is this piece by Editorialist Babbage? Where Gadgets Go to Die (7/21/2014). He's repeating statistics disavowed by BAN, referring to Greenpeace's 2009 campaign, and alluding to a vast unknown market for burning computers. In a Sci/Tech Column, for godsake! Oh the humanity?

I do encourage followers of the blog to read the article and to comment, and to refer Babbage and Economist SciTech to BAN's retraction of it's overseas dumping "statistics" and recognition of the UNEP reports from a year ago. Find links at "How the Basel Action Network Saved Africa" posted a year ago last month.

And here's some breaking news about "collateral damage" Hurricane Joe Benson I just received

Just a quick note to let you know that Joe was moved, last Friday, to Maidstone Prison.

Maidstone is an open prison so at least the conditions he is in will be improved.

It should be a lot easier for Juan to get an interview with Joe.

His date of Birth is 15th April 1960. We still don't have a prison Number but give it a try anyway.

This makes me sick. The EU is ruining Africa for everybody.

Yin, Yang, Omm Part 1: Responsible Electronics Recycling Act (HR2791)

#FreeJoePenna Blog (one of 8 composed on a France beach vacation 2014)

WR3A became the anti-BAN. But we have both been part of a Charitable Industrial Complex.

It's like a tug of war over dusty, desolated, impoverished Darfur, a guerrilla morality of ethical posturing. A war between rich over who gets the rights to the poor's images.

Poverty and inequality, or the perception of it, is power. Ask Marxists about how to harvest envy. The bigger the problem is perceived, the more you can justify meddling and redirecting the marketplace to "fix" the problem. (appropriate illusion and background music by Brazilian MysteryGuitarMan Joe Penna, below)

There is no denying that there are problems and inequalities in the system. But whether or not the poor are hurt more by the free market than by BAN.org's efforts to "fix" it, we are contesting a moral high ground which itself has an economic value. In this series (Yin Yang Omm) I'm attempting to write about how the economically disadvantaged either benefit from the dispute, or from its resolution, or whether they have any interest in it at all, and who-the-heck-are-we in that equation.

In several previous blogs, like Environmental Malpractice, readers get a closer view of what it's like inside the planned obsolescence shredding industrial complex, and how it is driven by white man juju - liability. The fetishes placed on the secondary market by people "responsible" for the continued life of products they've let go of force many to shorten the lives of the product. Recycling laws have made it almost impossible to export working assets. It is taking billions of dollars of USA assets which are wanted by less affluent but rapidly emerging markets, and turning them into toxic piles, and puts people supplying countrymen who cannot afford new product into jail cells.

Reactions to perception of inequality or injustice can drive societies to do irrational things, to burn witches at stakes, ban books, and shred new cars. Envy can drive liability lawsuits, jealousy can sway jurors... (so Mazda said to heck with it). That's right, liability for product has created a system which actually shreds new cars rather than punt them into poor countries, and the same system is increasingly positioning itself to shred refurbishing markets.

Through a proposed new law on exports to secondary markets, BAN and CAER essentially propose a paradigm where the emerging markets cheap labor is available to only to corporations, but are blocked from buying their own supply of work. RERA would allow these people to do warranty repair, and to assemble and disassemble brand name goods, but not to purchase non-working products for reuse, repair or recycling.

The Responsible Electronics Recycling Act (HR2791)

The Bill is supported by some people I really like. Niel Peters-Michaud, for example, has enlisted himself and his company both with E-Stewards, BAN and CAER, and has also been to Africa and testifies that limits on trade to that continent will produce better results.

"Do we really believe that the dream of someone in a developing world is to process our toxic e-scrap? I think they would prefer to dream of driving a well equipped Audi." - Niel Peters-Michaud

Before going deeper into the psychology of two white CEOs from liberal northern states arguments over the welfare of Africans, let's look at what a state (California) with a system similar to RERA's has created. Hint: no new Audis have been distributed to any African nations.