Robin Ingenthron Academia.Edu - Two decades of building a case in favor of Trade between Global Geeks

The blog has almost as many unfinished and unpublished posts in 2021 than posts that made it online. Twitter and Facebook and Linkedin force me to make the points more succinctly, and that can be good if the subject is retreading of past fair trade recycling posts. 

Given no word limit, I find myself tiptoeing up to the edge of obfuscation. But at the same time, there are a few people out there still who appreciate the intellectual bedrock of Right To Repair, Right to Own, Right to Recycle, and the tactics of Action Networks and Big Corporations.

 To make sure everyone can find copies of articles I've published, or authors and researchers who've done research on projects of mine at Fair Trade Recycling - Here are some of the highlights of 20+ years of research, and the untangling of a charitable industrial complex that doled out heaps of collateral damage on the E-Waste Hoax. 

 https://independent.academia.edu/RobinIngenthron 

Note that the oldest one is a paper I had to hand-write on completion of my 1983 semester at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland (couldn't fit a typewriter in my backpack). I'd gone to research the Infant Formula controversy and the USA's refusal to participate in a motion by the UN General Assembly to restrict the trade of infant formula to developing nations (LDCs). 

At Carleton College I worked to re-instate the Nestle Boycott by circulating petitions, and was pretty confident that I'd discover the US was wrong. But after deep interviews with Americans at World Health Organization, the leaders of the INFACT* 'Infant Formula Action" group, and Geoffrey Fookes (VP of Nestle) I got a taste of the "career path" of activism. I could not see any way the boycott could have traction without targeting Nestle, the most wealthy and conservative and best-practices-oriented manufacturer. And I didn't see how the NGO could grow and build on a micro-issue.

"WHO's in charge?" was a pretty decent pun summing up the problems I saw with UN and World Health Organization acting as pharmacists to police sales of baby food.  The real solution was right under my nose 2 years later, when I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroun, Africa.

(*or was it INFORM? One was the USA counterpart)

Poison Apples 2: Profiting from Ewaste Cures

Things that seemed very important to write about 6 years ago (about things like desktop CRT monitor remanufacturing in Asia, and California SB20) now seem less vital.  But while public discussion of the topics in this blog has quieted, and some wins (like Mr. "Fishing as a Boy" Anane being actively edited out of certain documentaries) institutionalized, individual cases of racial profiling of the emerging market's tech sector continue. I receive a lot of thank yous "under the table".

What I have learned over the 11 years of writing this blog is that being passionate about environmentalism is like being passionate about cures for human sickness and disease. It is a hot topic until the disease is cured, but that different populations struggle with different levels of risk.

And the importance of being green is not passeé.  The theme is to improve environmental health the way we improved human health. Sometimes, that means standing up to the liar wearing the doctor's white coat, promising to end suffering by selling a cure they've barely tested....

E-Waste Policy looks a great deal, through the lens of history, like 1960s infant formula sales.  My mom recently recalled that when she was breastfeeding me at the hospital in Harrison Arkansas in 1962, a nurse in the room asked her, "What are you trying to prove?"  Mom was only 19... but thank god she could see past the nurse's labcoat.

2017 Theme: Questions From Grad and Undergrad Students

Here's an idea for 2017.  Through the FairTradeRecycling.org web address, we receive research questions and internship applications from undergraduate and grad students around the globe.  This year, I'm going to publish some of those questions, with my answers (or external experts) in the blog. I'll be the Dear Abby or Miss Manners of E-Waste.

If you have a research question about recycling or waste or export for repair, send it here.


It reminds me of my Carleton College (MN) internship at the United Nations in Geneva in 1983.  I was a long-haired activist and agent of conscience who was promoting the 1970s "Nestle Boycott" over infant formula sales [NYT 1981].  I'd circulated a petition at the college to keep Nestle brand candy bars out of Carleton vending machines, etc.  In Geneva, I had the chance to meet with the head of INFORM the Boycott NGO, with the US representative of the WHO, and the Vice President of Nestle, Geoffrey Foochs.  A lot of what I learned that summer put a permanent spin on my career.  A lot of that summer appears in this blog.

The misuse and aggressive marketing of infant formula was indeed a horrible period.  I won't go into the pictures of malnourished babies, contaminated water, "samples" which lasted long enough for a mother's breasts to dry out (leaving her bound to the bottle)... this was clearly a heroic battle in the early 1970s.  But in 1983, there was as clearly an "industry" around the "boycott" and the main product being traded was ego gratification among long haired liberal arts students.

A year later I was teaching in Adamawa Province in Cameroon and I brought in Nestle powdered milk for a lesson.  I'd drawn a nice cartoon of a mother breast feeding and asked the class which was better.

A slight majority raised their hands and said the powdered milk was better.  All boys.

Then something rare occurred - the few young women in the class were adamant.  Standing.  Raising their voices and pointing their fingers menacingly at the ceiling, as if testifying before God.

No, they cried.  Breast is best!  All of the girls knew better, and were - uncharacteristically - LOUD about it!