So sure of themselves. Feel the righteous indignation peculating the internet... It gives environmentalists super powers. Enfused with the right amount of coffee, the enraged altruist can hurdle statistics and peer reviewed studies and protect Africa from the proven innocent. In our latest episode, e-waste bans will protect Americans from a future "epidemic of cyber crime!"
Race!
Income!
Epidemic!
Globalization!
Exploitation!
Environmental waste!
Insert your cognitive risk here: ________________________
Below are responses to my post in Slashdot.org ("news for nerds, stuff that matters") about the three studies (Kahhat/Williams, UNEP, and BAN's own adviced Kenya Study) which report that 80-90% of imported electronics goods (paid for by the importer, after all) are reused, while 85% of the "e-waste" filmed at Agbogbloshie, etc. is generated by Africans after decades of reuse.
Mon dieu! The outrage! People really sure that if it comes from developed nations, and is purchased by "backwards" Africa, that it's gotta be bad. Lots of caffeine evident in discussions of e-waste. The superpower of Certainty! The power of Smug.
Seems (according to one self-identified ewaste pro) that I "have got a chip on my shoulder". Or another quips that that I haven't read "customs reports", or I'm "missing the point", and that even if the imports are mostly good, that "it's still a useful myth to shame Westerners into doing the right thing" (that being... to boycott black people?). My usual favorite shows up - that eventually working equipment will become e-waste. ERGO... Egyptians shouldn't be allowed to purchase working equipment until they have e-waste processes established. (Let's try applying that to the next i-Device sold in USA)...
Meanwhile, BAN.org director Jim Puckett agreed with me, face to face, that there were no CRTs at the end of the Hong-Kong-CBS-Wasteland trail, and that the SKD factories he objects to are reusing and recycling the elective upgrades ... he just objects to the parts refurbished. He hoped the poor will "leapfrog" us, he once told me.
Now, as good as those contract manufacturing factories may be, it's the principle of repairing and refurbishing them prior to export which BAN professes. Puckett hopes he will create USA CRT monitor refurbishing jobs by requiring "pre -repair" facilities to remove bad capacitors (or working ones that may be upgraded by better ones), effectively eliminating any incentive for the sale to overseas repairpeople. Banning the export, we'll repair them here! Tell that to California, which didn't even TEST the working ones when exports were banned - they just shredded them, and now California companies have requested permission to landfill the shredded glass. That's what created the sellers market, forcing Africans to buy from people willing to stoop to doing business with them.
Safer to stand back, and to clap when they are arrested. Chains... prison bars... defamation...
Income!
Epidemic!
Globalization!
Exploitation!
Environmental waste!
Insert your cognitive risk here: ________________________
Below are responses to my post in Slashdot.org ("news for nerds, stuff that matters") about the three studies (Kahhat/Williams, UNEP, and BAN's own adviced Kenya Study) which report that 80-90% of imported electronics goods (paid for by the importer, after all) are reused, while 85% of the "e-waste" filmed at Agbogbloshie, etc. is generated by Africans after decades of reuse.
Mon dieu! The outrage! People really sure that if it comes from developed nations, and is purchased by "backwards" Africa, that it's gotta be bad. Lots of caffeine evident in discussions of e-waste. The superpower of Certainty! The power of Smug.
Seems (according to one self-identified ewaste pro) that I "have got a chip on my shoulder". Or another quips that that I haven't read "customs reports", or I'm "missing the point", and that even if the imports are mostly good, that "it's still a useful myth to shame Westerners into doing the right thing" (that being... to boycott black people?). My usual favorite shows up - that eventually working equipment will become e-waste. ERGO... Egyptians shouldn't be allowed to purchase working equipment until they have e-waste processes established. (Let's try applying that to the next i-Device sold in USA)...Meanwhile, BAN.org director Jim Puckett agreed with me, face to face, that there were no CRTs at the end of the Hong-Kong-CBS-Wasteland trail, and that the SKD factories he objects to are reusing and recycling the elective upgrades ... he just objects to the parts refurbished. He hoped the poor will "leapfrog" us, he once told me.
Now, as good as those contract manufacturing factories may be, it's the principle of repairing and refurbishing them prior to export which BAN professes. Puckett hopes he will create USA CRT monitor refurbishing jobs by requiring "pre -repair" facilities to remove bad capacitors (or working ones that may be upgraded by better ones), effectively eliminating any incentive for the sale to overseas repairpeople. Banning the export, we'll repair them here! Tell that to California, which didn't even TEST the working ones when exports were banned - they just shredded them, and now California companies have requested permission to landfill the shredded glass. That's what created the sellers market, forcing Africans to buy from people willing to stoop to doing business with them.
Safer to stand back, and to clap when they are arrested. Chains... prison bars... defamation...
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| Boycotts!! Boycott the poor dammit!!! It's the only solution to globalization!!! |
