Guiyu, China is a polluted place. Part of it is polluted by the textile industry. But these burn-houses for circuit boards are real, and no one is saying they are good. Not much "e-waste" recycling is done by the river, there is no CRT business in Guiyu, and the sophistication of the chip sorting and reuse business really deserves more credit. But there is pollution there, enough pollution for children to have high levels of lead in their blood samples. Without question, we can see it. Guiyu deserves our help.
My fair trade recycling campaign is not about making excuses for the sale of circuit boards to places like Guiyu. What we propose is that trade can be used as a lever to incentivize reforms. Just as we lowered the price of SKD monitors sold to Malaysia in return for ISO14001 certification and glass-to-glass recycling of residuals, we believe that Guiyu's economics can be used to negotiate improvements to the standards for children. This is a math problem.
Agbogbloshie, Ghana is really the same story. There's no denying that its sad to see a kid busting a CRT tube with a rock. I'm not sure why someone does that... there's not much inside a CRT tube but a metal shadow mask. But I've seen it on film, and even if the TV was used in Ghana for years, I'm not heartless. Lead in children's blood bothers me a lot.
My fair trade recycling campaign is not intended to make excuses to send "toxics along for the ride" to Ghana or Nigeria. It's intended to reform the trade, so that people keep their jobs, their repair jobs, their reuse jobs - even their recycling jobs, if we eliminate the burning. But most of all, it's about observing the constellation of the recycling trade more closely, listening, doing Q-sort, and not selling the conclusion that the sun orbits the earth.
My fair trade recycling campaign is not about making excuses for the sale of circuit boards to places like Guiyu. What we propose is that trade can be used as a lever to incentivize reforms. Just as we lowered the price of SKD monitors sold to Malaysia in return for ISO14001 certification and glass-to-glass recycling of residuals, we believe that Guiyu's economics can be used to negotiate improvements to the standards for children. This is a math problem.
 |
| My African Neighbors, 1985 |
My fair trade recycling campaign is not intended to make excuses to send "toxics along for the ride" to Ghana or Nigeria. It's intended to reform the trade, so that people keep their jobs, their repair jobs, their reuse jobs - even their recycling jobs, if we eliminate the burning. But most of all, it's about observing the constellation of the recycling trade more closely, listening, doing Q-sort, and not selling the conclusion that the sun orbits the earth.
