I'm about to submerge into Mexico with some professors of history and geography.
The best way to visit the "fair trade recycling" concept will be with history, geography, and economics. A lot has been written by OECD scholars about "converging markets" and "contract manufacturing". The question is whether hand- disassembly recycling, repair, and reuse is a decent way to achieve environmental benefit, amd whether it can create sustainable jobs in poorer countries?
My theory, which I've approached from many angles in 2011, is that there has to be something good in trade for two parties to agree to it, and to do it over and over. If it's not all bad, then it needs to be reformed, not prohibited. Prohibitions and boycotts never work because they ignore supply/demand.
The "attractiveness" of the export boycott is to Americans with typical weakness in geography, math, science and history. Ignorance lends us to bias. We draw conclusions from photos. We think that the entire south of Missouri is wiped off the map when we see homes destroyed by tornadoes in neighborhoods of Joplin. We think that "non-OECD", plus or minus six billion people, is "primitive". And if people invest capital around that misperception, they will tend to promote and market to it.
The unholy grail is to get the processes of your competitors declared illegal. Selling CRTs to be rebuilt into TV/monitor combos? There may not be any pollution to it, but if I'm running my CRTs through a shredder I bought, it's ok by me for your process to be called "illegal". As Dilbert calls it, "Using the law to keep justice at bay." Whether patent law or environmental law or export law, if there are lawyers there are interested parties.
The best way to visit the "fair trade recycling" concept will be with history, geography, and economics. A lot has been written by OECD scholars about "converging markets" and "contract manufacturing". The question is whether hand- disassembly recycling, repair, and reuse is a decent way to achieve environmental benefit, amd whether it can create sustainable jobs in poorer countries?
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| OECD lens of Penang, Singapore, and Borneo: Basel Convention Chaos |
The "attractiveness" of the export boycott is to Americans with typical weakness in geography, math, science and history. Ignorance lends us to bias. We draw conclusions from photos. We think that the entire south of Missouri is wiped off the map when we see homes destroyed by tornadoes in neighborhoods of Joplin. We think that "non-OECD", plus or minus six billion people, is "primitive". And if people invest capital around that misperception, they will tend to promote and market to it.
The unholy grail is to get the processes of your competitors declared illegal. Selling CRTs to be rebuilt into TV/monitor combos? There may not be any pollution to it, but if I'm running my CRTs through a shredder I bought, it's ok by me for your process to be called "illegal". As Dilbert calls it, "Using the law to keep justice at bay." Whether patent law or environmental law or export law, if there are lawyers there are interested parties.
