5. How Too Quietly Big EWaste Lies Buried: Top Five E-Waste Lies Mapped

Let's ReMap the Five Biggest E-Waste Lies (before the April Fool's Blog traditionally comes out).  In Part Five, let's look at five geographic places the bodies of the truth were buried underneath a pile of false narratives and bogus "E-waste Export" claims. If you are doing a thesis or term paper on electronics recycling this semester, take the blue pill and see how normal ordinary places were sensationalized with poverty narratives despite prima facia evidence that the story was bogus.

We can forgive reporters and news producers like Solly Granatstein (CBS 60 Minutes) at the proximate time that they report. We can roll our eyes at well-meaning do-gooders who react to false claims with alarm, out of a sense of liability. 

But I question why so few reporters do as Ira Glass did following his sharing of Mike Daisy's Foxconn exaggerations and lies. This American Life is alone in re-tracing its steps, and learning that activists and environmentalists are not immune from biased reporting, sensationalism, and creating bricks that build the House of Big Lies.

The Big Lies are about PLACES visible on Google Earth. Please, I need some unprejudiced university student help to link and map these, and I can provide the photos.

1.Guiyu.

2. Foshan

3. Basel

4. Accra

5. Hong Kong

Punjab / Faisalabad is the Sixth Man... Penang, Malaysia gets honorary mention.

Many Blog Posts are Emails To Academics: Urbanization Politics of Agbogbloshie

This is an email I just sent to a European graduate student, who is attempting to do a major research (thesis?) paper on Agbogbloshie.

I always have taken time to encourage researchers. It is part of my "fishing for swordfish, surrounded by perch" philosophy of blogging. The blogs are ignored by most people, because most people don't have the bandwidth to really focus on them, or to do a deep dive, or review ground already covered.

But these emails and blogs reach people who are truly concerned, and who ultimately discover that there is an almost sinister systemic manipulation of "do-gooders" empathy to accomplish monetary gains. I usually talk about the Western (and now Asian) lobbies - Big Shred, Planned Obsolescence, and Charity Industrial Complex.  But in this morning's email to the Swiss based graduate researcher, I like to remind us that Africans have Agency, even if some of their agency is systemically marginalized by the desire for shiny white consciences. 

In Accra, Ghana, it's the land value stupid. Agbogbloshie, for decades (IMF and World Bank papers go back to the 1960s) has been an urban scrapyard next to the Old Fadama slum.  If you want to know what is ultimately going to happen, read about the Kowloon slum in Hong Kong. All the "recycling" story is just using BAN propaganda to leverage demolition and expulsion of some of the most valuable real estate in one of the richest African urban centers.

It's not about you, or your old computer.

Certification and Racketeering 5: Analysis of Seven GPS Tracking Studies

2018 GreenTrack Report found only 5% export, including export to OECD countries grntrac.com DWE

In the next blogs of this series "Certification and Racketeering", we look at a chart comparing 6 actual and 1 hypothetical use of GPS Tracking Devices to follow largely unwitting and unwilling subjects.  We compare methods of placement, tracking, and financial involvement of lead investigators. From there, we will delve into whether the study acts as "Environmental Watchdog" or merely protects the claims of being an authority when those claims are threatened. If, for example, a GPS tracking study specifically seeks to discredit or scandalize someone who has a beef with the Investigator, does that influence the mechanics of the study?

In the 7th hypothetical GPS Tracking study, I've deliberately created a clearcut "Racketeering" use (using the tracking study to offer a solution to a problem that would not otherwise exist without the financial interest of the investigator). The hypothetical would clearly be a matter for the American Civil Liberties Union, or EFF, or Interpol or Bob Mueller to decide. We then correlate the studies to see which ones have more in common with the Racketeering Hypothesis.  Then we look at quotes and behavior of the lead investigator.

Certain MIT students, when they get older, may want to come forward and disclose specific methods used to drop specific devices at specific places. I can promise anonymity and cover your costs. I can also put you in touch with MIT's own attorney, who took over correspondence after MIT Senseable City Lab excused themselves from further collaboration with BAN.org

Fair Trade Recycling Geek in Tamale, Ghana

Later, we will visit ("Take Your Pic") the use of cringy photos to jolt emotions when the actual statistical findings are not doing the trick. The art of a deal "selling" an unnecessary service, deceitful or otherwise, involves provocative / race-baiting imagery.

In the DWE tracking study, Dennis Ward    @dward_dennis gives us charts. In report by BAN, we have constant tear-jerking imagery evocative of our worst fears and perceptions of their so-called "Third World". But let's first focus on the methodology in 7 separate GPS Tracking Reports.

GPS trackers show exchange of products between two consenting parties.  There is not a single case of direct dumping of used electronics at foreign landfills. Who are we guilty of doing business with? And what makes our partnership suspicious?

TOP 10 Themes to Ingenthron's Good Point "e-Waste" Blog 2006-2016

If you are going to map this blog to take my insights for a thesis, article, or term paper you are writing, I'd be glad to help though I don't have that much time to insert links below. Let me know whether I've forgotten any.  Because I might be finished.

These ten themes have valuable lessons outside of e-waste policy.  They are examples of examining an electronics recycling problem, and finding a universal that will lead to more environmental justice (and less environmental malpractice) in other trade policies.


1) Mining a ton of material always pollutes more than getting the same ton by recycling.

The hand-wringing about "perverse consequences" of recycling can lead to improvements in the recycling process.  But any "gotcha" or "dirty little secret" stories need to face up to situations like copper mining at the OK Tedi Papua New Guinea, the lead mining at Kabwe, the 14/15 largest USA Superfund sites, etc.  If you dispose of X out of concern over it's recycling process, and the same quantity you disposed of has to be mined from a rain forest, don't pat yourself on the back.

2) Elective Upgrade Decisions are Relative, Tied to Value Added

The second-hand market allows a chain of affordable use.  When a rich person chooses to upgrade to a new device, the environmental costs of production (like mining) remain embodied in the old device, which is now affordable to someone who could not have afforded a new device.

This creates a "critical mass of users" in emerging markets necessary to support investment in cell phone towers, internet cable, satellites, TV stations, etc. You can't raise enough taxes to repave a road if none of your citizens owns/affords a car.  Don't feel guilty about getting something new - so long as your used good gets reused.



More below

Term Paper: Poorly Defined Problems, Rules, and Bias

The Term Paper Theme in the blog (past 3 months) has been a real stretch.   I'm just not able to write a Ph.D thesis from the coffee lounges of hotels, at least not writing which is accessible to non-academic readers.   But I write on.  If there is something "breaking" I think industry should know, I promote it so it gets the 500 page reads.  But the goal is not to have every post widely read.

The biggest problems in the E-Waste and WEEE research-osphere have been from documents like West's of MIT which are written densely but don't define what they are researching sufficiently enough to escape the gravity of bias against trade between Rich and Poor.  Two examples in the past 4 months actually reprint the "80-90% export to primitive recycling" statistic which even BAN.org has abandoned after the UNEP duplicated previous research (Peru) showing only 15% of the exports are for primitive recycling.

Why the stubborn belief that Externalization of toxics from rich to poor describes most of the trade?  In my previous "@term paper" blogs I showed how enforcement does police higher property values, which is why you can't mine gold in the Cleveland Heights OH... and I've written how ROHS inadvertently externalizes a very very small risk (leaded solder) from rich people landfills by destroying coral reefs and creating more toxics in Indonesia (where tin, the non-toxic replacement, is found).   Externalization does happen.  But the fact it happens should not make it believeable that poor people in developing nations pool their money to buy  e-waste and pay thousands to transport it across oceans, through customs, to burn it.

My company ships TVs to our Fair Trade Recycling operation, Retroworks de Mexico.  We pay the transport there.  But that is rare.   Most exports are paid for by the buyers.  We've pretty much proven they have no interest in the junk (unless it's mixed in as TAR), that they have high reuse.  But even a big name consultant like DSM Environmental reprints the fake 80% statistic in a report less than a month ago.

Why the persistant belief in false risks?   Muggings do happen in Harlem, but 80% of Harlem residents are not muggers.  Today's thesis:  Opinion favors the concept of "underdogs".  That is probably genetic ("won't someone please think of the children").  And it is marketed to by all sides, conservative and liberal.  People are more likely to interfere in the marketplace if they believe one of the two parties is an underdog.

Case Study:  Arkansas vs. Florida, Maryland vs. Duke (NCAA basketball)

Humans have an innate or genetic trigger to prefer "Underdogs".   I explained to my youngest son last night why his older brother and I were rooting for Maryland in the final minutes of the NCAA game vs. #2 Ranked Duke.   I'm a fair weather NCAA basketball fan... when my hometown Arkansas Razorbacks beat previous #2 Florida a couple of weeks ago, it got my attention, and I started watching games again.

Export Trade Bracket:  The Externalization Tournament

Term Paper Required Reading: Waste Policy Haves and Have Nots

Here are three background reading assignments:

A:  History of the light bulb (Arizona State University INVSEE)
B:  Rapidly Urbanizing Populations Face Unique Challenges (WorldWatch Institute)
C:  Network of Tinkerers - 2007 US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Network of Tinkerers - Bureau of Labor Statistics
	[PDF]  www.bls.gov/ore/pdf/ec070120.pdf File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View by PB Meyer - 2007 - Cited by 5 - Related articles Nov 5, 2007 – Network of Tinkerers: A Model of Open-Source Technology Innovation. Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Working Paper 413 ...

When you fail to understand that "waste" is relative, and you apply the precautions over past waste in present contexts, you would take the used printing press from Benjamin Franklin, you'd take the used RCA victrolas from from Japan Victrola Corporation.

The movement of used goods from "haves" to "have nots" is a story of opportunity.  Sales of working product (USA producing new cars and selling them to Europe) is an exchange from "haves" to "have nots".   Donations of rice to children is an exchange.  Purchase of coffee from a country that has coffee, for consumption in a country that does not have coffee, is an exchange between haves and have nots.

When you study the history of development, and the history of tinkering, and the history of new products, from light bulbs to flush toilets, you prepare yourself to do a better job trading in commerce. Or you can tell yourself that prohibition, boycotts, and bans on commerce are the answer... if you ignore the history of prohibition, bans, and boycotts.

Term Paper V (5): "E-waste" Export, Geog of Env Justice

Back to the "Term Paper" (for those following).   Here is how I overlay the "regulated areas" of "environmental justice" and "property value" on an actual case of "non-OECD".

(You may need to go back to "Term Paper 1-IV").  This is an academic post, which goes well with a video, but we also want these accessible in nations which csor videos, so here's a link to a "geographic" song, Rue St. Vincent, sung by Yves Montand.  Open and listen in another window...



Case Study:   Singapore and the Malay Peninsula

Malaysia, the nation, also includes huge rain forests in Borneo and Papua New Guinea - home to both the most biologically diverse and unstudied rain forests on the planet, disappearing orangutans, and the OK Tedi Copper and Gold mine (#evil).  Where it is green, Malaysia is very green.  But it's easier for the purpose of the case study to look just at the Malay peninsula, which Malaysia shares with the city-state of Singapore (at independence from the British empire, they were both part of Malaysia, but Singapore won independence fairly peacefully).

First, the "eyeballs diagrams" are NOT drawn to scale.  Singapore is 704 square kilometers, Malaysia has 338,550 square kilometers.  After a couple of years of co-governance, Singapore became independent in 1965;  it still had not rebuilt from Japanese occupation during WW2.  From Wikepedia 13.01.08:

Facing severe unemployment and a housing crisis, Singapore embarked on a modernisation programme that focused on establishing a manufacturing industry, developing large public housing estates and investing heavily on public education. Since independence, Singapore's economy has grown by an average of nine percent each year. By the 1990s, the country had become one of the world's most prosperous nations, with a highly developed free market economy, stronginternational trading links, and the highest per capita gross domestic product in Asia outside of Japan.^[1]

Peninsular Malaysia has 131,598 square kilometers, so even eliminating the islands Borneo and PNG, it dwarfs Singapore.

Term Paper II: "e-Waste" Export, Geography of Environmental Justice

Yesterday's thesis about the relationship between land value, environmental enforcement, and pollution, used a map from http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/land/,  showing toxic release sites on a map of the USA, and a chart from the same website showing the relative amount of toxics generated in specific localities.  When the releases are charted as "an occurance" and each release is given a single data point, the map shows the "superfund sites" to be concentrated in urban areas.

The sites, when weighted by actual tons of pollutions, are 83.75% in the top 20 / 100 sites (suggesting the 80/20 rule or Paretto Principle may apply).  The top 10 sites are in Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Missouri (Doe Run area), and Orange Florida.  Each of these sites has a "drilldown" function for data at Scorecard.Goodguide.com  Orange County Florida, the one non-western, non-mining area on the top ten list, has a NASA, USA Department of Defense, WR Grace, Dupont, Department of Energy, Chevron industry, etc. on its list of "potentially responsible parties" for lagoon pollution.  The nine sites above it are raw material extraction industry sites, none of which, my thesis states, could function economically inside a high-property value area.

1.	NORTHWEST ARCTIC, AK	481,382,100
2.	HUMBOLDT, NV	350,591,683
3.	PINAL, AZ	248,792,746
4.	SALT LAKE, UT	138,824,328
5.	ELKO, NV	83,494,740
6.	GILA, AZ	57,220,938
7.	EUREKA, NV	43,572,135
8.	OWYHEE, ID	28,887,324
9.	REYNOLDS, MO	27,313,480
10.	ORANGE, FL	24,032,977

The enforcement and likelihood that a site is identified as a threat is proportionate to its proximity to a landholder complaining about it.  For this reason, the "superfund" target sites on the USA map above are concentrated around cities and population centers.  This "NIMBY" or "Not In My Back Yard" dynamic is part of a normal democracy.  The spotlight on "environmental justice" in the USA focused on the difference the likelihood of enforcement correlated to race of neighborhoods;  that's an overlyer, according to my thesis, for economics and property values.  As I pointed out in one of the Slums Blogs last spring, 5th Avenue in Manhattan had auto repair shops a hundred years ago... but these relocated to Queens because it's easier to do repair work on an area with lower property value.

The Diagram Below generalizes the relationship between property value, wealth, and awareness of pollution. People live in rural villages, forests, and plains, but their population density is lower, and enforcement of all types is less likely in these areas.

The difficulty or unlikelihood of an enforcement paradigm outside of a population center is why emerging market city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore are more likely to achieve OECD-like status sooner than an emerging market like Malaysia or Indonesia or Brazil... the most recent nations admitted entry into OECD have been small.   Large nations admitted to OECD tend to have gained entrance early on, because of their econmic power (like the USA).  The USA was admitted into OECD while the pollution in Orange County was occuring, but as one of the "founders" of the OECD, the USA benefitted from a simpler formula - wealthy and white.  Not even Japan was not on the first OECD list.