4 Key E-Waste Tactics: Inference, Allegation, Indictment, Guilt?

Why should exports of used electronics be outlawed?  Let's look at the case Basel Action Network makes in its campaign to stop the used electronics trade.

The "watchdog" campaign to end USA's used electronics exports relies on inferences, allegations, indictments, and even proven guilt.  Which is which, and how concerned should environmentalists be?

1) Inference:  Poor children are found amid piles of e-scrap, and pollution is found amid piles of e-scrap.  The inference is that the e-scrap was imported, and that the pollution, the poverty, and associated risk to children will be reduced through prohibition.

- First, the water pollution in Guiyu comes largely from the textile mills in the area.  But some of the burning of copper and boards is certainly going to add to the pollution in the short term.  Did the material come directly off of a boat laden with imports?

Or was it material imported years ago?  Or was it recently imported, but a percentage of residue (e.g. 15%) of otherwise clean scrap or reuse product?  Or.. just perhaps.. does the fact China generates more "e-waste" than the USA have something to do with it?

And are the children helped more by prohibition or by investing in safer processes?  Is the problem manual disassembly, or fire?  I say fire is the problem and e-scrap can be recycled without fire, just as cotton can be picked without slaves.

BAN is good, really good, at inference.

Interpol III: X Defense of Export Trade

Save the Internet Entrepreneurs!

"Laptops, Monitors, PCs, all free today"

"Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks." - Malcom X




The 2009 Interpol E-Waste report author thinks the problem is about MONEY.  "Why do people do something illegal?  It must be for money!"   The report attacks everyone exporting anything, from family fly-and-buy internet cafe owners in Africa, to CRT cullet furnaces in Malaysia, to smelters in Canada. They came out and accused everybody except mining, incineration, and landfills.  It is a sick, sick, and twisted finish to a decade of racist and paternalistic poster child campaigns.  Enough.

As Lt. Columbo explained in the previous post:  Money is exchanged for VALUE.  The fact that someone paid for something is NOT evidence that something was done wrong.

1. Criminals export junk electronics
2. Wahab and Liu export electronics
3. Therefore, Wahab and Li may be criminals

The report sets about looking at data, describes how importers like our Wahab buy used computers with money, and implies the money is evidence that they are exporting junk.   Paying for something someone else is willing to sell, it is somehow suspicious.

Where does this type of logic lead us?

1. Rapists have sex
2. John and Mary had sex.
3. Therefore, John and Mary may be rapists. 

Puritanical rules, such as "no exports" or "no export of intact units" are intended to discourage "inappropriate trading relationships".   But trade is not evidence of discard or theft - it is right between the goal posts.  You didn't steal it from me, I didn't dump it on you... we made a deal and traded.