NGO Bravely Intervenes in Seattle Laptop Donation

[April 1, 2019  Seattle, Washington]  It was a close call for a local Seattle charity, which nearly received a dozen working laptops from a Canadian reuse organization last month.

Fortunately, Basel Action Network was quick to intervene, notifying the charity by email that the working laptops - while free -  were, in fact, used goods.

"We try to sabotage these before they are handed out," said Executive Director Jim Phuckett. "Had these gotten into the hands of a needy person, they might have gone for years using the device, not even realizing they were accessing the internet and typing term papers using 'e-waste'!"

Apology From Craig Lorch and Jeff Zirkle - Entrapped By BAN

Last week, E-Scrap News and Recycling Today ran an Op-Ed Letter and story about the upcoming sentencing of two electronics recycling company owners from Seattle, Washington.

Craig Lorch and Jeff Zirkle's letter starts with their background as young freon recovery do-gooders, who got into fluorescent lamp recycling, and then into "E-Waste", becoming the largest TV, computer, and electronics scrap recycling company in the NW USA.

Open Letter: Learn from Total Reclaim’s mistakes

Got a call from Craig a few days before the letter, and we had a pretty long talk about the situation. Had a shorter exchange with Jeff just afterwards. Around New Years, I had talked to Charles Brennick, another Seattle area electronics guy spiked by the GPS tracking scandal in Washington. And I've been in regular contact with Bojan Paduh, founder of Canada's ERA, who is in a defamation lawsuit against Basel Action Network for their report describing GPS device trackers they put into electronics dropped off at his site in Canada.  I was a paid expert witness for a fraud case on e-waste recycling in Chicago last summer.  So I have a lot of perspective to share.

It is an ugly business to grandstand, or use a friend's painful prison sentence news story as a soapbox to pontificate on environmental policy.  But in some of these cases, I've been given a green light.

Let's start by acknowledging that fraud is bad.

Let's finish by talking about Total Reclaim's biggest mistake.

Rumors Update 3: Deauville, Normandy, Film Festival

This is just a sneak peak. Leapfrogs #2 because it's so hot off the press...




The collateral damage to geeks of color over the past 2 decades has left scores of witnesses.

Bullyboy 9: Authority Without Borders

"Be Quiet!  I order you to be quiet!" 

- Arthur, King of the Britons, (Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

As I wrap up the "Bullyboys" case for exoneration of African traders, we are left with a simple question of authority.  Jim Puckett told me directly, a few years ago, to "stop referring people to Annex IX of the Basel Convention."  (the section that makes export for recycling, and repair, legal - so long as it isn't dumping).   It was in the form of an order.  Basel Convention was his "turf".   He drew a line and told me not to cross.

"The Magna Carta Action Group."
"The Declaration of Independence Action Network."
"The Bill of Rights Action Center."


There are lots of authoritative names a small, underemployed environmentalist can bestow himself.  Most Americans wouldn't fall for the "Associations" above.  But if you select the name of a Swiss Treaty, and say "international law" enough times, you may even get an informed journalist to report your press release as something from an authority.

Ill defined legal systems produce bullyboys.

King Arthur: I am your king.  Woman: Well I didn't vote for you. King Arthur: You don't vote for kings. Woman: Well how'd you become king then? [Angelic music plays... ] King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king. Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. 

The difference between an authority and a bullyboy?  Law. Courts. Constitutions.  Consensus.   And the problem in this whole case is that there is little in the way of an international court system.  Lacking international law, and fed fake numbers by BAN.org, Europeans have reverted into bully justice.

Granted, true international law is more orderly.  I've been to the the Hague, I've been to Strasbourg.  But these are very busy places to get into.  If you are arrested in Britain for a crime you are not even accused of committing where it didn't occur in Nigeria, and think you can find a place on the International Court Docket, go buy a Megabucks lottery ticket, right now.

Laws only "happen" inside borders.  The police or Stewards or regulators who enforce international "law" are enforcing something that is extra-juridicial.   That's why treaties have to be "ratified", to give them status of law inside the borders of a nation with laws and courts and police.   Inside a border, giving "international" law to a policeman, there is otherwise no constitutional basis for appeal.

Your sole appeal is to the bully-boy.

Bloomberg: Stop the Baseless Panic Over "E-waste" Exports

llustration by Tim Lahan

Today Bloomberg News runs an editorial by Shanghai-based author Adam Minter which debunks the widely over-reported and false statistics about e-waste "dumping" overseas.   Citing several studies, Minter concludes

"Thanks to the International Trade Commission findings and other, smaller-scale studies, we now know that most secondhand electronics are reused and recycled in the U.S. The toxic tide that frightened Americans into stashing their old computers in closets turns out to be nothing more threatening than a trickle."

See Mike Enberg's response (from comment field) below.

Fair Trade Recycling Challenge to University of Washington

Nailing shut the case for fair trade recycling of used electronics ("e-Waste").

We finally got this translated, thanks to Middlebury College faculty and alumns.



I'm working on getting a better quality copy.  It's nice to finally see the subtitles of the interviews with 'Batman and Robin'.

"...This combination of white guilt, and white paternalism...  And that the more I got to know these "Geeks of Color", these technicians, the more I realized - these guys are not only 'not doing anything wrong' - but they are actually the very best hope that these countries have."

MIT, Memorial University, Arizona State, Middlebury College, UVM, Champlain College, University of Arizona, University of Peru PC, University of Amsterdam, Universite Paul Cezanne, Cornell, Boston College...   Everyone looking into this finds that we are telling the truth, and that Basel Action Network is the one "dumping" (false accusations and defamation) on the poor.

They are parasites of the poor, and cowards for not responding to any of this.  The universities will be calling and asking questions about the 80%.  We have opened our doors.  We have nothing to hide, we have made mistakes and we are going to show them.  We do not pretend to be what we are not, and do not pretend to do things we cannot do.  If we take the pictures of Africans, we give them a name and a say.  Primitive?  You disgust me for using that term to describe A+ technicians replacing faulty capacitors, or original design manufacturers who own the patent on your touchscreen device.

DISGUST.   Basel Action Network is taking down reputable environmental organizations like Greenpeace and NRDC in their black hole of niggardly defamation.  They have had more than three years to respond to the false arrests/accusations of PT Imtech and Joseph Benson.

For the opinion to the contrary, I urge you to contact the University of Washington, and ask why they have joined a boycott of the Geeks of Color, and why they did not get a peer review from universities on the East and West Coasts who have listened to both sides and chosen Fair Trade Recycling as a standard.

Alex Credgington
University of Washington, Communications Manager
206-616-3412
ecredgin@uw.edu

Alex, if you want to meet the Chicas and tour our plant in Mexico, give me a jingle. For more background on the case why exports should not be defamed, read this piece in Motherboard, "Why We Should Ship our Electronic "Waste" to China and Africa".

We would love to have University of Washington's best scholars join the team, look inside, and tell us why we are wrong.   I challenge you to take your surplus materials, divide them into two equal piles, and we will draw straws.  Send one half to Total Reclaim (a friend and E-Steward), and one half to our Fair Trade Recycling partners at InterConnection in Seattle, allowing product to go to Retroworks de Mexico.

I have nothing to hide.  And I trust Charles at Interconnection and Jeff and Craig at Total Reclaim.  Do a whole mass balance, and see where the monitors, TVs, PCs, and hard drives wind up.   Memorial University may have funding to film the entire process, film the two loads, and escort them.  Oh, and Retroworks de Mexico, while it's in the poorest area of Sonora, IS IN AN OECD COUNTRY.   So no, it will not violate "international law" and whoever told you that... well, like I said, let's have a little "PEER REVIEW".

In 2013 I will close the case.  E-Stewards will either change, change management, change message, or go down in history as a racist, xenophobic period of environmentalist history.

My mom in the Ozarks described the first interracial marriage I heard about this way.

"She's very brave."

She must love him very much to marry despite the southern recoil that surrounded interacial marriage in the 1960s.    I am only brave enough to trade.

I don't want to speak on behalf of any of the researchers from any of the universities.  I just want to change the presumption of guilt, and protesting innocence and opening doors seems like the best way to go about that.   If the University of Washington wants to bring a camera and ask BAN what they should be aiming the camera at, that's fine by us.   We dropped our bucket where it was, and will lift as we climb.

Ingenthron Hired by Basel Action Network

This was an April Fools Day joke.  A representative of BAN has expressed concern about our posting of it, see comments section below.

[April 1, 2010 Seattle, Washington]    Electronics recycling organization Basel Action Network stunned "ewaste" industry insiders this morning with an announcement that the organization had hired Robin Ingenthron, a former state regulator and CEO of a used electronics exporting company, as its next Executive Director.

Outgoing Executive Director Jim Puckett described the surprise appointment as part of BAN's campaign to spruce up its message.   BAN has hired leaders from within the recycling industry before, including Lauren Roman of e-scrap processing company MaSeR.  Many other executives have recently made moves in the industry, including former EPA attorney Robert Tonetti moving to Unicor, and former Unicor director Larry Novicky moving to ERI, one of BAN's ESteward founders, but Ingenthron's switch from "export apologist" to export prohibitionist will certainly draw attention.

Puckett attributes the turnabout to the declining economy.  "We spent several years trying to get Robin to stop his apologist stance on hazardous e-waste exports.  In the end we found out that his company stock price was so low, it was cheaper just to buy him out."   The sale of assets from Good Point Recycling was estimated in the thousands of dollars.

Ingenthron was until recently a major critic of what he called "prohibition" export policies, and advocated fair trade policies to improve the export market.   However, photos surfaced in the spring of Ingenthron's exploitation of Vermont children, working outdoors in what an environmentalist watchdog's press release described as a "toxic garden of oozing CPU processors" and a "witches' brew" of inert metal scraps.

Asked about his new position at BAN, Ingenthron declined comment, citing (gesturing at) a non-disclosure gag order BAN had issued.   Ingenthron will be allowed under the contract to speak only non-western languages, and will be studying Hindi.

"We like the quieter, less argumentative, submissive Robin," said Puckett, who is being promoted to a new position at BAN's office in California as "Chief Engineer of Breaking Stuff".  Puckett hopped into a helicopter after the press event, sporting a black robe and long white beard.   Industry insiders expect more recycling executives to move to the Seattle watchdog's office, as BAN uses windfalls from its "gross earnings" tax on certified E-Stewards to pick off recycling professionals willing to sign similar non-compete and non-disclosure contracts.

WR3A.org, Ingenthron's former "Fair Trade" non-profit, has been interviewing several candidates to replace Ingenthron.  One candidate reportedly interviewed for the "Export Reform" organization, Willie Horton, gained national stature during the Dukakis campaign for his reform message.

Released April 1 2010   This is an APRIL FOOLS DAY satire, written the day after I read Jim Puckett's Opinion Piece in E-Scrap News, which accused our contract manufacturing partners of poisoning people.  In Jim's Opinion piece, he states "Some have called exporting such equipment for re-use a form of fair trade;  however, there is nothing fair about saving money by poisoning others".    I took this as directed at this blog, and the April Fool's satire above seemed like the way to respond with a sense of humor.  As is obvious to readers of this column, fair trade does NOT "externalize" costs, it recognizes them, requires they be dealt with, compensates the repair people for them, and audits that no one is poisoned as a result.