Fair Trade Recycling Launching Ewaste Offset - Countdown in Ghana 2018

Ghana's Tech Sector abandons Environmental NGO "Missionary Position" on imports, launches shipments of junk back to OECD, ton for ton, to offset imports for reuse.

Emmanuel Nyaletey gave an excellent 30 minute presentation to IERC 2018 in Salzburg, Austria 2 weeks ago, where he documented the growth and use and consumption of household electronics since construction of the Okosombo (Volta) dam in the early 1960s (and 4 subsequent dams have failed to keep up with demand since then - see draft presentation on google).

Rather than treat Africa's Tech Sector as "competition for strategic metals", Fair Trade Recycling proposed to organize Africa's Tech Sector to send back one ton of decades-old e-scrap for every ton of equipment they buy for import.

We are now 2 weeks into our interviews with Tech Sector repairers in Ghana, who are enthusiastic about sending decades old waste back rather than "prove" they have the skills to use, sell, or fix the "Stuff" that they buy. We have learned perhaps the most from surviving mentors (original TV repair trainers) from the 1970s and 80s, who shed light on the market for 'home used' electronics, and how it has evolved over 50 years.

5 years of CRTs (imported 10-30 yrs ago) abandoned at Tamale TV Shop

#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

 

Alhassan Ibn Abdalla‏@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

Robin Ingenthron‏@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" 9 - Great White Savior Gam

We revisited Agbogbloshie in urban Accra yesterday.   Having 9 days in Tamale, learning the Dagbani context, was important.  It honed and shaped our thinking.  Wahab and his 2 cousin/friends could focus their Dagbani translation on our questions, rather than siphon off the translation for American and Italian reporters.  As importantly, we had 9 days to think about the questions we didn't think to ask on the first day.

Since it was Agbogbloshie, of course there was yet another documentary being filmed that day... Justin from New York said he's a masters degree film student.   That's basically all he'd tell us.

This time we got to the wire-burning "hot spot" via the long and windy route.   We saw much, much more of the scrap metal site and trash dump.  It is indeed impressive in the context of a city of 1 million residents.  Of course, this city has closer to 5 million.   Recyclers will get my point... there has to be a lot of stuff still out in the city somewhere, waiting for a decision maker to let it be recycled.

money shot

The white photojournalist had Awal (Howell) set up along the canal, sitting on a TV housing, with his back to the tire fires east of him.  We took a vantage point under the sun canopy where the scrap burners and hanger-abouters rest and have lunch.

Agbogbloshie as a scrapyard has little to do with wire burning, and the wire burning has much more to do with automobile wire than with "e-waste".  But those wire fires, while a very small part of the equation, attract thrill seekers - unemployed teenagers and #greatwhitesaviors like me and "Justin".  

The site, seen from above, is mostly scrap automobiles, motorcycles, and bus recycling,.  It's not the largest electronics dump in the world, not even in the top 100.  Given the number of African households who have had electroncs for decades, there should be much more e-scrap.  "E-waste" is a very small part of the scrap, apparently because Africans are still holding onto it, "speculating" that used electronics they don't use now will be sellable to someone.  Today's Agbogbloshie is probably the tip of an iceberg as decades of reuse and repair will eventually cascade from a next generation of smart phone users.

India Rag Recycling: Not so Shoddy

Taking a break from Africa trip, I reminded myself to USE TWITTER for its intended purpose.

Twitter isn't for writing, and reading every person you follow is about as edifying as reading a library card catalog. Booleans and keyword searches have long replaced the Dewey Decimal System.

Twitter is about the SEARCH box.   So for a break, I typed in "Recycling India".

BAM. BINGO.   A textile recycling city.  Tip of the hat to Tweeter Tim Mitchell of the UK.

http://www.timmitchell.co.uk/index.php?/projects/clothing-recycled/

APOLOGIES - I must redirect you to this site, still strongly recommended.
In place of the India photos I originally posted, I have put in several 60 year old Wikimedia photos of rag-pickers from Western cities.  Do visit Tim Mitchell.

I completely understand that an artist saying "yes" to one person can lose control of the images as they are found by other bloggers.   Fortunately, through Wikimedia Commons, I have managed to find practically the same photos (in black and white) as the activity shown in India, mostly taken in Britain in the 1940s.

Wikimedia commons - "Old rags into new cloth Britain"

At the thrift shop I managed for two years, we sold a lot of bales of used clothing, and found the market dominated by Indians, Pakistanis, and Africans.   My long lost chum Yadji told me about his family making treks to Lagos to buy bales of used clothing to bring back to his Cameroon village of Yenwa.

The Tim Mitchell link shows 28 photos taken at an Indian rag and clothing trade village, which I say defies the labels of "formal" and "informal" sector, terms made up by Western academics and then applied by the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on Taiwanese competitors with CCP owned factories.



The mall photo or Mitchell's (#10) reminds me of the Cairo used Technology Malls.   The 28 photos show several links to different niches and segments.  One is actually the business of buying used India Saris, washing them up, and exporting them to the "hippy markets" in Western countries.

Spotlight: Pakistan Computer Association

From your keyboard to God's eyes.  Munawar Iqbal, the President of the Pakistan Computer Association, successfully defends against and reverses the "ban on used computer imports" initially attempted by Pakistan Government.

Bravo to Pakistan Computer Association for successfully, thoughtfully, overturning the image of "primitive wire burning" be documenting the baby being thrown out with the bathwater.  This should be the position of other democracies, such as Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia.  Recognize your geeks, embrace them, they are your future.

Read the PAC statement by Hina Mahgul Rind

KARACHI: The Computer importers, dealers, and representative body of IT education institutes have rejected the proposed ban on import of used computers and paraphernalia, asserting that it will deprive IT institutes and students from acquiring cheap equipment. The chief executive of local computer assembling firm said that they don’t have any issue with import of used computers as the market was divided into various segment with each catering to its targeted clientele. The Pakistan Computer Association (PCA) General Secretary Arshad Janjua while talking to The News said that PCA rejected the proposed ban on the import of used computers and IT accessories being considered at ministry of information technology, which he claimed, was on behest of some vested interest groups. Janjua said that the reason given to ban import of used computers that it is an environmental hazard and it is adding more pollution in the environment. There are thousands of things, which are dangerous to health and environment and generating pollution but nothing is being done to control them. Only to ban the import of used computers is a conspiracy of some vested interest group only to benefit the multinational companies dealing in new computers. The move would take computers out of the range of students and affect livelihood of thousands of vendors dealing in used computers.