Vermont Press Release - Firsthand accounts of SECONDHAND, By Adam Minter

MEET AUTHOR ADAM MINTER IN BURLINGTON, VERMONT

November 14, 2:30PM, UVM Davis Center

On November 14 (America Recycles Day Eve), the University of Vermont Recycling staff will greet best-selling author Adam Minter at the Davis Center (590 Main Street) as he speaks about his new book SECONDHAND, Travels in the Global Garage Sale.

Minter chose Vermont as a launching point (to the surprise of his publisher, Bloomsbury Press) to thank Vermont for hosting him at the Fair Trade Recycling Summit (2013), where he met several of the fascinating people he profiles in Secondhand.

According to UVM Recycling Director Corey Berman, and Middlebury recycler Robin Ingenthron, Vermont's emphasis on reuse is something that Adam saw, firsthand, put to good use in Secondhand.

"Downsizing. Decluttering. A parent's death. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country—or even halfway across the world—to people and places who find value in what we leave behind."

Secondhand takes readers on a globetrotting journey to see how items saved or discarded, donated or sold by Americans make their way into reuse, repair or remanufacturing processes. In Vermont's example, he followed a load of computers from Middlebury to Ghana, and interviewed the "tech sector" importers who provided Ghana's information grid with affordable electronics. Minter also treks to Japan, India, Mexico, and other "reuse trade routes", and winds up with important questions about how important our stuff really is, and who should write the rules about it.

Date: Thursday, November 14, 2019
Location: Sugar Maple Ballroom – Davis Center (Address is 590 Main St.)
Time: 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm.

Lifecycle Analysis: CleanTech, "BrownTech", and Export Markets

What is the tension between "CleanTech" - e.g. a new hybrid car - and (what I'll call) "BrownTech"?  Repairing an older gas guzzler to run another year before mining, refining, consuming for new?

Early adapters proudly display their new CleanTech device.  As they should. By electively upgrading to a newer, environmentally-efficient device, they are sending signals to the market and to investors.  The early adapters are on the front lines, bringing the scalability (lowered cost and efficiency) to the new wind, solar, sustainable, recycled-content, non-toxic, etc. markets.

But being able to afford these elective #CleanTech upgrades is a privilege not shared by poor people, especially those in Emerging Markets (so-called "third world" countries).  For them, they are upgrading from a black and white 1967 television to a color 19" CRT.  From not having a phone at all to a flip Motorola.

The new #cleantech device trade shows are exciting.  So are ghetto repair shops. We are on the same spectrum of Life Cycle Analysis.  The differences are economic and cultural.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/Mariordo

Injury Box Blog: Pics Parasites Poverty

Last week I "kinda severely" injured my left hamstring in two winter-home-weatherization related incidents.  What has been frustrating has been to be home-bound but unable to sit still, upright in a chair for long.  Makes for halting, sporadic blogging.

Last weekend's post "Missing Poverty: Poverty Comedy" was messy, but I'm kind of excited by something that turned up from inside it.   The parallels between 1960s Ozarks and 2010s West Africa is not exactly uncanny, we've even been there before.  But the Hans Rosling videos I've been engrossed by this winter helped me generalize my subjective insights.



In 2009, South Korea became the first former recipient of OECD economic assistance to join the assistance giving committee.   South Korea was admitted to the OECD in 1996, 25 years after OECD was defined.  The 1961 original OECD membership list was whites - only (not even Japan was considered "developed").  Kids in college today are getting a message about "developing world" from people who considered South Korea a charity case, and they are getting the message on Samsung handheld devices (which they use to shop for Hyundais and Subarus in another tab).

You can track affluence and progress through lifecycle of appliances.  Koreans bought used products from affluent 1970s Japan.  Selling a first used car to a teenager is not necessarily "exploiting" the teenager.  Selling a starter home to a young family is not making them poor.  The guilt-by-association with poverty dogs the used goods market, and photographic snapshots of poverty should not become a modern soul snatching juju.

It's a fallacy that invokes instincts of nurture and instincts of aversion, and it sways crowds of people who self identify as "Agents of Conscience".   The key is to understand spiritual materialism (the desire to be a good soul) and history of development.  Rosling has shown how the majority of humans, like my Ozark cousins, have emerged from poverty within generational memory.  We need to explain to the Royals that fixing and recycling stuff isn't suffering.

Many places have been wealthy for so many generations that they do not have any institutional recollection of the end of poverty.  But for those of us who can remember, boycotting the poor is not how affluence went down.

Monkeys Running the Environmental Zoo Redux Nigeria

In July 2010, I was here in the same beach house (Barcares, France), reading author Bill Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything", and I attempted to explain exports of used electronics to Africa the way Bill Bryson might explain it.

It has been the highest ranked, highest read blog.

Many such blogs relied on photos or topical references, and the "Monkeys" blog is not really any exception. The photo of the baby monkey was forwarded back to me by Jeff Hunts of California Recycles (the example makes short shrift of CASB20).

But for me it is the financial analysis in the example at the end of the blog which makes it high ranking.  It uses sample loading of sample purchase orders to predict - 85% reuse.

This was a year after the Ramzy Kahhat and Eric Williams paper (Peru 87% reuse).

It was a year before the UNEP found 91% reuse of electronics imported to Nigeria.

It was three years after BAN's own researcher in Kenya estimated 90% reuse.

And it shows NORMAL TRADE.  Californians return brand new product at 11.9%.  Worldwide, new product failure for circuit boards is 8-33% (ESD).  If we were reporting on a trade which didn't have photos of Pieter Hugo nymphs burning smoky junk attached to it, it would be boring, too boring even for this blog.

Oh, right.  People are going to jail.  Over this.

A week from today, if all goes well, I will be meeting (outside of Heathrow Airport) the man Joseph Benson who was labelled a "kingpin" in the "illegal" trade of used electronics to a country - Nigeria.  Nigeria had 6.9M households with television, a 70% of all sales as "secondary market", and a sampling showing 91% reuse of used electronics imports.

I'm told Benson doesn't like meeting face to face with white male environmentalists.

Who can blame him?

Read the 2010 blog if you haven't yet.  I want to keep it as the #1 read blog.

Fair Trade Recycling Announces Agreement with RE:Solve (Resolv.org)

Mobilizing Information about Fair Trade Recycling Standards in Used Electronics

WR3A.org, dba Fair Trade Recycling, is soliciting donations from members and supporters to fund the transition of our NGO to a venue in Washington DC.  The outcome will be a mature, responsible, diplomatic organization which is better able to defend the best practices in recycling, and to defend them and those who practice them from thinly veiled accusations of exploitation and other "dirty little secrets".

WR3A is changing, but it's not going away.  We are going into a new phase of the organization's development.   The message of Fair Trade Recycling is moving out of Vermont, to Washington, DC.  We are mobilizing the message about fair trade recycling.

Fair Trade Recycling is joining the Solutions Network at Resolve.

Below are three other projects housed at ReSolve's Solutions-Network.

CONFLICT-FREE TIN INITIATIVE

In September of 2012, the Conflict-Free Tin Initiative was announced by Industry partners convened by the Dutch government. The Conflict-Free Tin Initiative project intends to start a conflict-free tin sourcing program in South Kivu, an eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The initiative pilots new tracking and tracing procedures to ensure the conflict-free status of the supply chain. Following the conflict-free testing phase of the pilot, the initiative will address other mine-site sustainability issues. View project

CONFLICT FREE SMELTERS

The Conflict-Free Smelters (CFS) Program of the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and Global E-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) seeks to end supply chain support for the sale of illicit minerals from Eastern DRC and the surrounding region.  As smelters/refiners (smelters) build systems and demonstrate compliance with the provisions of the EICC-GeSI Conflict-Free Smelter (CFS) Program, they may encounter transition or start-up costs associated with participation in the program.  It is recognized that these costs may be most significant to small and medium smelting enterprises.  The CFS Early-Adopters Fund is designed to offer smelters an extra incentive for early participation by helping to offset these transitional costs. View project

SOLUTIONS FOR HOPE

In July of 2011, the Solutions for Hope Project was announced by Motorola Solutions Inc., a leading manufacturer of mission critical public safety and enterprise wide communications equipment and AVX Corporation, a leading tantalum capacitor manufacture. The ‘Solutions for Hope Project’ was launched as a pilot initiative to source conflict-free tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Tantalum is a metal used in capacitors for electronic products and is derived from the mineral coltan, which is in rich supply in the DRC. View project

BAN Spins: How the Basel Action Network Saved Africa

This month, the UK is moving to change its laws to stop the export of used televisions.  You know, the used TVs which make up 70% of sales in African markets, which created about 7 million households with TV in Nigeria.  And the CRT computer monitors, which Africans used to set up the internet cafes which led to the Egyptian Spring.

In about 10 days, new regulations will come into force to explain the 2009 arrest of an African, Joe Benson, who sold the TVs before the laws were changed.  You could call it "tying up a loose end".

But there's another loose end to attend to.   Last month, Basel Action Network publicly disavowed the "80% Export" statistic in response to a Bloomberg editorial (Adam Minter).   Also, BAN Executive Director Jim Puckett applauded this UNEP study.

"The majority of refurbished products stem from imports via the ports of Lagos. The interim results from project component 2, the Nigerian e-Waste Country Assessment, show that 70% of all the imported used equipment is functional and is sold to consumers after testing. 70% of the non-functional share can be repaired within the major markets and is also sold to consumers. 9% of the total imports of used equipment is non-repairable and is directly passed on to collectors and recyclers."

- Final report of the UNEP SBC, E-waste Africa Project,  Lagos & Freiburg, June 2011 

Here's another quote from the Nigeria E-Waste Assessment Study:

"Refurbishing of EEE and the sales of used EEE is an important economic sector (e.g. Alaba market in Lagos). It is a well-organized and  a dynamic  sector that holds the potential for further industrial development. Indirectly, the sector has another important economic role, as it supplies low and middle income households with affordable ICT equipment and other EEE. In the view of the sector’s positive socio-economic performance, all policy measures aiming to improve e-waste management in Nigeria should refrain from undifferentiated banning of  second-hand imports and refurbishing activities and strive for a co-operative approach by including the market and sector associations."

Sounds a lot like "Fair Trade Recycling".  So how does BAN balance the UN Study, showing 91% reuse, recommending AGAINST laws like CAER's Green-Thompson bill, with its applause for the crackdown by Interpol and Europe on exporters like "Hurricane" Joseph Benson of BJ Electronics?

First, embrace the study.  Second, take credit.

Quotes from Jim Puckett:

"I am very satisfied with the quality of the UNEP studies. I know well the authors and have worked with them and discussed findings with them.   These studies were funded due to our film Digital Dump which was shown at the Basel meeting whereafter the EU donated 1 million Euros to assist Africa in solving the e-waste crisis.  

"Nigeria was faced with a very serious abusive importation scene when we first arrived in 2005.  They took the appropriate action and Nigeria is one of the great success stories of addressing the e-waste crisis.  In China it has worsened, in Nigeria, they have really exercised control over the egregious toxic e-waste trade impacting their environment.  "

This is Jim Puckett's spin on the UNEP study, which took 279 sea containers in Nigeria (104 of which came from Joseph Benson's adapted country, the United Kingdom).   The researchers pieced all the TVs out, and found 91% reuse rate.   He tries (in the second quote) to take credit for the turnaround.

In fact, BAN was very, very busy in 2009 and 2010, the period when the 91% reuse was documented in the UNEP study.

Here is a report from the University of Northhampton (UK) which uses BAN as a source, stating only 25% of what Nigerian techs imported could be fixed or reused - complete with photos by master photographer Jim Puckett himself.  What a terrific turnaround it is, from only 25% reuse to 91%.

So fast a "turnaround" that the innocence/improvement happened before the crime!

Here is the infamous 2009 Interpol report, which uses the same (or similar, they never seem to be exactly the same) statistics from BAN's "study" on the percentage of waste in African used electronics exports.  Did Puckett notify Interpol that it was actually much better in 2009?  No.  BAN issued a press release, referring to the Africans as "Organized Crime".  And the source of Interpol's data on the extent of the dumping - MSU - cites who else?  BAN, their report that 80% of exports of CRTs are for primitive recycling.

More from 2009 and 2010:  The smoking guns

Fair Trade Recycling: Deleted By Trolls on Slashdot.org? Cal Milmo Redux?

Somda:  I can do that.

I've been completely unsuccessful in keeping this story alive on Slashdot.   We need to go Reddit or StumbledUpon.  Deleted from Slashdot Submissions:

retroworks writes  "They came to our African city dumps and photographed children burning scrap — scrap that was thrown away after decades of use. Then they said our African businessmen and women had imported the junk recently, and dumped 80-90% of it. Our entrepreneurs have been arrested, and our internet cafes and hospitals denied IT equipment, and our citizens told to buy brand new devices which they cannot afford, or which — when made cheaply — fail at a higher rate than the quality used equipment. And the Environmentalist who use our children's images keep the money, and don't share a dime with Africa." 

This damning quote from Jean Frederic Fahiri Somda of Burkina Faso , who opened the Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit, was not the first to defend Africans accused of creating "e-waste" dumps in European and USA media — an allegation that has recently resulted in the arrest of 40 African export businesses in Europe, and allegations by EPA that Egyptian businesses who purchased CRT monitors in the USA for $21 each intended to crudely recycle them. 

At the FTR Summit, Field Studies and Surveys from US International Trade Commission, Basel Convention Secretariat, IDC, MIT, Memorial University, ASU, etc. presented at the Summit consistently predicted that 85-90% of used electronics purchased by Africans will be reused for years before reaching the dump. African representatives claimed that USA and European reused equipment is less prone to returns than affordable (Chinese) new equipment."
This damning quote from Jean Frederic Fahiri Somda of Burkina Faso , who opened the Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit, was not the first to defend Africans accused of creating "e-waste" dumps in European and USA media — an allegation that has recently resulted in the arrest of 40 African export businesses in Europe, and allegations by EPA that Egyptian businesses who purchased CRT monitors in the USA for $21 each intended to crudely recycle them. 
At the FTR Summit, Field Studies and Surveys from US International Trade Commission, Basel Convention Secretariat, IDC, MIT, Memorial University, ASU, etc. presented at the Summit consistently predicted that 85-90% of used electronics purchased by Africans will be reused for years before reaching the dump. African representatives claimed that USA and European reused equipment is less prone to returns than affordable (Chinese) new equipment."

None of the links goes anywhere unvetted or controversial, or to a self-blog.  The key link is to live recordings of professional researchers.   They all agree with Mr. Somda.  The arrests of African used goods importers is a perverse outcome, a type of environmental malpractice, a defamation, an unintended consequence, or even an example of racial profiling gone absolutely wrong.

Used "E-Waste" Exports: United States International Trade Commission.

Report from United States International Trade Commission.

Report on Export of Used Electronic Products. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. The U.S. International Trade Commission announces the release of Used Electronic Products: An Examination of U.S. Exports USITC Publication 4379 Investigation No. 332-528  "End Uses of Working U.S. UEP Exports "An estimated 60 percent of U.S. UEP exports (by value) were exported in tested, working condition in 2011. While it is not always clear whether whole goods shipped to developing countries are intended for resale or recycling, available information suggests that they are most likely resold in working condition where possible, because most working UEPs (particularly more recent models) have a higher resale value than the recoverable materials they contain. According to one study, for example, nearly 90 percent of used personal computers being imported into Peru are resold rather than dismantled for recycling or raw materials, largely because their sales value intact surpassed that of their component materials.11 Similarly, in Ghana, 90 percent of UEP imports in 2009 were either in working condition (70 percent) or repairable to be resold (20 percent) (box 5.1).12 Thus, the end use for most working and repairable personal computers, cell phones, and other UEPs that are exported is initially a secondhand market." (Note: The other 40% includes separated scrap and formal recycling)

Summary:  U.S. sales of used electronic products (UEP) in 2011 were valued at $19.2 billion, and U.S. exports of such products in 2011 made up 7 percent of total U.S. UEP sales, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its new publication. Completed at the request of the U.S. Trade Representative, the report is based on data collected through a nationwide survey of 5,200 refurbishers, recyclers, brokers, information technology asset managers, and other UEP handlers. The report covers the year 2011 and focuses on audio and visual equipment, computers and peripheral equipment, digital imaging devices, telecommunication equipment, and component parts of these products. The Commission's findings include: ·         UEPs are collected from consumers and businesses, sorted by value, then either refurbished and resold as working electronic equipment or disassembled into working parts or scrap commodities (metals, plastics, and glass) that are resold as manufacturing inputs in the United States and abroad. ·         The top five destinations for U.S. UEP exports in 2011 were Asia-Pacific countries (primarily Korea and Japan), Mexico, India, Hong Kong, and China, accounting for 74 percent of exports. Just over half of U.S. UEP exports were shipped to countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). ·         Whole equipment for reuse accounted for the largest share of U.S. exports by value in 2011, and tested and working products represented the majority of U.S. exports of whole UEPs. ·         Refurbishing and repair enterprises accounted for the largest share of U.S. exporters of UEPs by value, followed by enterprises involved in wholesaling, brokering, or retailing. ·         Measured by end-use of the products, commodity materials intended for smelting or refining accounted for the largest share of U.S. exports by weight (43 percent) in 2011. ·         U.S. regulations in place in 25 states generally reduce exports by requiring electronics manufacturers to collect used products for recycling. Industry certification programs also likely serve to limit U.S. exports of UEPs. In contrast, limited U.S. capacity to process UEPs in two segments of the industry: cathode ray tube (CRT) glass and final smelting – create incentives to export CRT monitors, CRT glass, and circuit boards destined for smelting to retrieve precious metals. ·         In developing countries, demand for UEPs exported from the United States is strong, but the Basel Convention and some country regulations may limit such exports, since many developing countries agree not to import nonworking UEPs from OECD member countries. View the report at: http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4379.pdf Send to a Friend

REUSE WHILE BLACK: PRESUMED GUILTY!!!

RECEIVED TEN MINUTES AGO.

Interpol is still at it.  They seized 240 tons of used electronics, and announced it is "Waste", seized it.

Has Interpol tested the equipment?

Or is it enough, based on Interpols stunning, possibly racist report of 2009, that the goods were exported by Africans who live in Europe, who paid for the material, which showed "organization", and therefore "organized crime".

Meet the kind of people Interpol is arresting.

INTERPOL operation targets illegal trade of e-waste in Europe, Africa The first INTERPOL operation targeting the illegal trade of electronic waste saw the seizure of more than 240 tonnes of electronic equipment and electrical goods and the launch of criminal investigations against some 40 companies involved in all aspects of the illicit trade. Held in November and December 2012, Operation Enigma saw the participation of police, customs, port authorities and environmental and maritime law enforcement agencies in seven European and African countries. The operation aimed to identify and disrupt the illegal collection, recycling, export, import and shipping of discarded electronic products such as computers, televisions and other electronic devices, before they are dumped in landfills or other sites where they can cause severe environmental harm. Checks were conducted at major ports in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in Europe, a region considered to be a common source of electronic waste being shipped internationally, and in Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria in Africa, a region considered to be a destination for this waste. Almost one-third of the checks resulted in the discovery of illegal electronic waste.  The operation saw many coordinated actions between the participating countries. For example, Belgian authorities seized and returned to the Netherlands some 100 tonnes of illegal e-waste. This information was shared with the Intelligence and Investigation Service of the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate, the Dutch Police and the Public Prosecutor's Office. Operation Enigma also uncovered evidence of new concealment methods used by individuals and companies implicated in the illegal trade of electronic waste. This information will help the international law enforcement community work towards the elimination of these illegal activities. “Following INTERPOL's Operation Haz in 2009 and 2010, which targeted the illegal transportation of hazardous material, Operation Enigma is a new example of INTERPOL's continued efforts to fight all types of transnational pollution crime,” said David Higgins, Manager of the INTERPOL Environmental Crime Programme. “When it comes to electronic waste, the destination countries bear a disproportionate burden, and we aim to support them as they develop the necessary means to deal with it.” “Addressing the illegal trade of electronic waste calls for substantial cooperation between exporting and destination countries. Operation Enigma showed the international community that there is substantial will among the member countries to cooperate in order to keep ahead of this modern threat to our environment and global security,” added Marco Araújo de Lima, Operations Manager of the Environmental Crime Programme. Operation Enigma falls under the Environmental Crime Programme's soon-to-be-launched Project Eden, which aims to support countries as they tackle the illegal transnational trafficking of hazardous waste through multi-agency interventions and intelligence-led practices.   Best regards / Cordialement / Atentamente / مع التحية INTERPOL Environmental Crime Programme INTERPOL General Secretariat 200, Quai Charles de Gaulle 69006 Lyon - Franceenvironmentalcrime@interpol.int www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Environmental-crime/ Follow us on Twitter: @INTERPOL_EC

Environmental Malpractice, Part I: Due Disclosures

[Note:  Last week I had initial meetings at the IQPC "E-Waste Summit" at Caesar's Palace with Jim Puckett and Mike Enberg of BAN.  We had a chance to try to clear the air a bit following the infamous Donald Summers blistering of "fair trade recycling" at Chicago Patch, Jim's equivocation of fair trade recycling and "poisoning people" in E-Scrap News, the effect of fake math on real people in the developing world, and the collapse of the California Compromise.    They in turn shared their genuine hurt over insinuations of racial profiling and accusations of financial motives, via my blog.   I need to treat that carefully, but have already cut this post into 3 parts after writing on the redeye from Phoenix.  It is hard to find the time to write this as carefully as it demands, but also vital to strike while the iron is hot... ]

First things first: The study of holistic environmental health parallels the evolution of the human health sciences.   Species diversity, carbon, toxics, ecosystems, sustainable consumption, over-population, etc. connect in ways we must study in order to understand them.  Western medicine has made monumental strides, but on the way to discovering a cure for AIDS and smallpox, we went through waste-centric periods of giving tapeworms for weight control, and liquid mercury as a laxative.

Western medicine grew up by making mistakes, discovering them, and admitting to them.  It has developed certain principles, like primum non nocere "first, do no harm".   But when well-meaning doctors accidentally do harm their patients, we don't call accuse them of "racism" or "poisoning people".  We have another more professional term.

"In law, malpractice is a type of negligence in which the professional under a duty to act fails to follow generally accepted professional standards, and that breach of duty is the proximate cause of injury to a plaintiff who suffers harm. It is committed by a professional or her/his subordinates or agents on behalf of a client or patient that causes damages to the client or patient."

-wikipedia 2012.11.16

Basel Action Network and Fair Trade Recycling offer different remedies to imbalances in the trade of used electronics.   Junk exports, or "toxics along for the ride", can happen either because a shortage is created (California SB20) or because of over-supply, or changes in prices of new product.  It is not the intention of the "E-Steward" to create a shortage, nor the intention of ISRI's overseas clients to pay for shipping of useless material.  We both agree that improvements can be made which will help the people in the developing world, emerging world, or non-OECD.

It's not a major concession on my part to swap the word "malpractice" for "accidental racism".  E-Stewards / BAN really want to be treated deferentially, as environmentalists, as watchdogs, as protectors of the poor, not "parasites of the poor".   But here is why I think it's a step forward:  Malpractice insurance is something well-intentioned health professionals need in case of an accident.

One of the first tests in court to differentiate accidental malpractice (unintentional harm) from criminal malpractice is how quickly the do-gooder responds to the mistake.   If a doctor takes a follow up X-Ray and sees she left a surgical tool in your belly and has to re-open the abdomen to fetch it, it's a lot worse if she pretends not to see it or refuses to review the x-ray.

Facts is facts.   It is time for BAN to give Due Disclosure about their "export statistics".

BAN may be excused for using the statistics "80%" a few years ago, and could say there wasn't good information.  They may have missed their own 2006 researcher's paper from Kenya, estimating 90% reuse.  They may have been skeptical of the paper by Williams and Kahhat, showing 87% reuse in Peru imports.  They may not accept my experience in estimating acceptable fallout when the cost of shipping to African ports is over $7000 - In Monkeys Running Environmental Zoo article, we calculated 85% reuse based on prices paid for product and shipping.  And they have loudly objected to the reports by ISRI and IDC that over 80% of used electronics are treated in the USA prior to export.

But a year ago, in 2011, the United Nations Environmental Program and the Basel Secretariat issued studies from in depth research (279 sea containers, following exports from Nigerian Joseph Benson from London to Lagos), and found - again - that 70% of the imports were fully functional, and half of the rest (15%) were repaired and reused.   That makes FIVE reports which estimate that between 80-90% of the used electronics purchased by Africans were legitimate.

Mark Twain's Anti-Defamation Recipe

Mark Twain:  

"It's not what you don't know; it's the things you know, that are not so, that really get you."

http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/03/mark-twain-weighs-in-on-crt-e-waste.html

Bad Statistics: The Jumping Off Point for E-Waste

Well, since EPA and Basel Secretariat won't defend themselves from the bully in Seattle, it seems to fall on me to defend sanity.   Should poor people be allowed to accept donations from, and do business, with well meaning rich people?   My answer is yes.   HR2284 says no, and makes that opinion law.

Using Halloway (post yesterday) as a jumping off point, let's look at all the assumptions for the case banning trade in used electronics between rich nations and poor.

They keep saying 80-90% of electronics exported are burned in horrific condtions.

" ..it has been widely reported that 90 percent of the USA's e-waste ends up in either China or Nigeria—a figure that appears to originate from an estimate made by Jim Puckett, Director of the Basel Action Network. "

It has been widely reported, indeed.   The figure "appears to originate" from Basel Action Network.  Basel Action Network credits the statistic from a 2002 interview they did with my buddy Mike at DMC.   My buddy Mike says, via this blog, that he was including ALL exports - clean baled steel, demanufactured copper, aluminum, plastic - everything that comes out of electronics.  And he meant exports to Europe (printed circuit boards) as well.

The actual studies with actual data show an imperfect but rational marketplace.  85% of used electronics imported into Africa are working or repaired.  The other statistic is that MOST Africans can only afford a used device - for now.  China has a plan to change that.


African business people can't afford to pay $10 to ship an item worth $3.52 in scrap.   BAN says that a good unit would pay for the transport of the bad units... but that's only if the African Geek is willing to donate his share of the profits to disposing YOUR junk.  Meaning he would have to charge you, or lose his money.  The more rational step is for the African to be very careful about picking and choosing items he can repair and reuse.


- The goods from the USA are mostly good.
- The bads at the dump are mostly generated over there (after decades of reuse).
- The mostly good were mostly purchased at thrift and second hand shops in the USA/EU
- China and other rapidly-ermerging nations are a new source of cheap and "gently used" goods


The question for China and USA is, how do we make money selling into this market?  Do we resell our used cars and electronics for their best value, giving us an incentive to take care of them?  Or do we just withdraw, to keep our consciences shiny and our Goodwills and Salvation Armies beyond the reproach of export markets?  Because THAT's where the Africans (and Haitians, and South Americans) buy from, the used goods marketplaces in USA and Europe.  And the number of "rich" people (used goods owners) doubles each year - and they are cropping up everywhere.


Salvation Army and Goodwill have competition.  Not just from for-profits like Savers and eBay.  The used goods market is growing as the world economy grows.   New consumers are created as wifi and electric cable wrangles its way into the slums, and as slumdogs become middle class, they generate their own used display devices, laptops, and cell phones.  The cup of used goods runneth over.  But the solution is not to ban the poorest from getting the leftovers.

" We Don't Export WEEE "

Of all the mantras a scrap recycler could have, this has got to be the WORST.

October 2011: "Call for Total Ban on Used Electronic Exports to Africa"  http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/weee/call-for-total-ban-on-used-electronic-exports-to-africa

It means no matter what Africans do, no matter how good their recycling systems, they should be banned from export because they are AFRICAN.  They will always be African and can never properly import -E-Waste.

This is racist.

Psst.  Nick Mann...

Search the term "fair trade recycling", and search the term "boycott", and figure it out.

Or read the article.  There's a woman, Margare Bates, whom I've  never met but who seems to say exactly what needs to be said.

Korea on Korea E-Waste Trade

Tip of the hat to Adam Minter, who's burrowed in to complete his "scrap book".

I'm not really sure what to make of this story in Mainichi Daily News, which is about the arrest of a South Korean for selling used PCs to North Korea.  But what is clear is what it is not about.

• It's not about the South Korean exploiting North Korea's poverty.
• It's not about racial guilt.
• There's no discussion of "OECD" South Korea trading with North Korea.
• There's no discussion of whether the personal computers were "fully functional", or "tested working", or ewaste.
• No one speaks about toxics, hard drive information, or other ju-ju words which elevate the e-waste crisis.

Silence!

It's not about a dictator calling the imports e-waste.  Dictators normally want to restrict the sale and distribution of cell phones, display devices, and internet.  In places like Pakistan, people call computer assets commodities, they are something people bid, something people want.  Labelling them "waste" leads to an SOPA-like uproar (Daily Times, April 2010 ‘No ban on import of used computers’).

In this case, the dictatorship is silent about the exchange of goods.

The outcry is from the nations who don't want North Koreans to be using the internet.

I don't know enough about this particular set of computers, who sold it, who bought it, or how they'd be used.  Maybe for a weapons system, maybe to edit porn.  Maybe to translate John Lennon songs...

Basel Action Network Agrees: Ghana Is Good

The Report from Ghana showing 85% reuse - not "80% primitive dumping" has finally taken traction.  People are wondering what is going on.  Basel Action Network had previously, repeatedly, claimed that 80-90% of the used electronics imported into Ghana were "toxic junk".

Last week, BAN tried to "spin" the report in their blog.  They announce it as "just released" (I spoke to them about it when it was released in April).  But perhaps they've now had a chance to review it.  Mike at BAN describes the study as follows:

The Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana just published their “e-Waste Country Assessment,” based on actual data from Customs authorities, field visits and meetings with key stakeholders — that is, from credible, in-country, official sources...

Ghana reports that at least 35% (and perhaps much more) of imported, second-hand electronic and electrical equipment (EEE) is non-functioning, most of that coming from the EU and the USA. Some is repairable — but fails soon and adds to Ghana’s growing e-Waste crisis.

The functioning equipment does create opportunities. But the dumping and burning of the rest results in serious consequences on the environment and a threat to public health. “Even children, sometimes as young as 5 years old, were observed to be involved in the recovery of materials from WEEE recycling, earning less than US $20 per month.”

BAN tries to impugn the repair market by including material documented as being professionally repaired in the "unacceptable" category, boosting the bad export number to 35%.  It is still LESS than HALF what BAN has told reporters.  And the repaired material is not described as "fails soon"... and the report says nothing about "(and perhaps much more)".

This post from BAN completely agrees with everything I've said.  Exporting more than 1/3 "waste" to Africa is economically impossible.   While I disagree with including "successfully repaired" with "waste", and think 15% is the problem, I'll concede for the moment that one third may be bad.

This now puts BAN in my corner about "waste tourism".   I now invite BAN to agree with me that the Europol and Interpol reports which describe African screeners (who buy and source the equipment in Europe and the USA) as "waste tourists".    I now invite BAN to join me in declaring the Europol conclusion that "organized crime" is behind the exports to be racist, bigoted, hogwash.

Next, if we can agree that the "problem" is somewhere between 15% and 35%, and that most of the waste being burned in Ghana's dumps was imported decades ago and was in active use for years, can we not also agree that the good part of the imports - 65-85% - should be continued?  Can we not use the economics to generate fair trade solutions, giving incentives for the repair markets (like the one EPA Lisa Jackson visited in Ethiopia) to become take-back and recycling programs, like our WR3A partners in Mexico and Malaysia?

Thank you to BAN for addressing this important study, and for admitting that MOST exports to Africa are good people trading good things with other good people.  Now, can BAN take the next step. and publicly denounce "no intact unit" as an export standard?  The percentage of "waste" in shredded equipment is higher than the percentage of waste in repaired equipment.   E-Stewards should not be allowed to destroy working equipment?

I'm going to invite BAN representatives to present with me at a Sustainability Forum here at Middlebury College.   They can meet geeks of color like Wahab of Accra Ghana, Oslo of Egypt, Ow Fung of Malaysia, and Jinex of Peru.  Looking the Technicians in the eye, and saying you now understand they are not about "80%" e-waste, that they are not "primitives"... Maybe BAN can help my friends to source even BETTER material, and more of it, and to join us in Fair Trade Recycling.  Maybe they can donate equipment to our UN partners, or to Meltwater Academy?  Neil of Cascades, a fellow RPCV, could moderate.

Join me?

Recycled Content Ju-ju Words

Recycling causes tuberculosis, and other nasty reporting...

The Independent, a reputable UK Newspaper, reports with fanfare how nations are a step closer to banning the trade of used electronics to "non-OECD" nations.  In the future, western nations will still be able to mine their coral islands and rain forests for the hard rock raw and rare earth materials rich nations need to manufacture electronics.  But the emerging markets will not be able repair, knock off, refurbish or remarket our used goods... the truth about what happens to exported cell phones, as reported by The Atlantic in an article with IFIXIT.

It's not about pollution.  We know that metal mining and refining, raw materials industries, produce 45% of all toxic pollution released by all industry.  We know that the coltan mining and gold mining bring the mercury and toxics, and creates the trafficked paths to bushmeat and rare species exploitation.  We know that recycling jobs are sustainable, lasting forever, but that veins of ores become dead ends and are abandoned to become the most toxic places on earth.

It's obvious that the free market prefers reuse and recycling.   If we are to maintain the marketing campaign of planned obsolescence, we need to convince these lesser developed nations that computer repair is bad.  We need to cover up the detailed data that shows 85% of the used electronics imported are reused and refurbished.  We need to convince them that they are hazardous waste.  The Independent Article takes a step in this direction, informing us that "tuberculosis" comes from "recycling".  I had always thought it was a contagious disease associated with poverty.  If poor people recycle, and poor people are more likely to have tuberculosis, that is "just enough information" to create an impression.

From the article, one would assume it's legal for Africans to stay barefoot and pregnant, mining coltan in rain forests for us to make brand new cell phones to sell them, but NOT to fix them for revolutions in Cairo.

How does our society, whose manufacturing system is sustained by exploiting rain forests, for metal for us to make into gadgets, market the word "Recycled"?  How do we let them manage the toxics from getting raw material, without letting them fix up our old product ("market cannabalization", another nasty term I learned for "reuse and repair", from the Obsolescence Class)?  We need a system to shred product prior to shipping it for recycling (shredded goods go to China), and to mine rare earths... something that doesn't get in the way of new product sales.   We find that dictators, afraid of the access to information the internet brings, and wealthy from sale of their nations raw material resources, are happy to classify used computers as "hazardous wastes", and bring the Basel Ban Amendment closer to passage.

Does it make any sense to define secondary material (reuse, repair, recycle) as a "waste"?  Waste is excrement... we have a natural revulsion...  good.  goooood.

2011 Display Device Price Freefall

Market Report on Used and Refurbished LCDs

The used CRT display device market has been on a slide for some time.  We have one of the only, and best, CRT refurbishing factory account purchase orders (which includes certified recycling of incidental breakage and parts recycling).  But the orders there have been cut from 180,000 units per month in 2006 to 5,000 units per month in 2011.

Part of that pressure comes from supplies from within Asia itself.   Office buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Taipei, Seoul, and Jakarta were replacing their working CRTs in mass between 2008-2010.   Even steady demand in Africa, South America, and the Mideast was fulfilled cheaply by Asian supply.  Shipping from the East Coast of the USA through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific, for refurbishing in Indonesia, and shipping back to Egypt... that was more expensive than refurbishing locally for export.

That, by the way, was one of the big factors to the "California Compromise" collapsing a year ago this month.  While BAN and California explored the idea of setting high standards for Asian Refurbishers to meet, the Asians decided it was too little, too late.

Now, the same thing is happening with used LCD prices.   Below is an excerpt from one of my favorite, Taiwan-based trade journals.  Today there is oversupply in the large (new) LCD market causing layoffs and work stoppages, and some factories are going back to cutting LCDs into smaller sizes and targeting the same emerging markets as refurbishers.

More about SKD (reusing monitors as TVs) Market

Big Secret Factories!!

WR3A posted a film on YouTube last summer where we showed a hardworking African entrepreneur doing a great job of fixing and reselling monitors in Senegal. His storyline was that he was happily doing business in California... then SB20 came along and ate up all his monitors with a loud crunching noise. He relocated to NYC, and bought from a guy and found I guess the container stuffed with muddy Katrina cake computers, losing all his money. SB20's unintended consequences. When he came to Vermont, he was so worried about taking junk that he tested everything. When it got to Senegal, he repaired everything he could. Yet this guy is being labelled either a polluter, or at best someone bringing working computers "which will someday need to be recycled". What I saw in Souley was the best hope Africa has. To refuse to sell him computers is to keep Africans 'barefoot and pregnant'.

But the African guys scale of operation is only a thousand or so monitors per month. If you really want to understand the export market, look for "Big Secret Factories".

(shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Colin Davis!)
In 1992, when I was a new recycling program director at Massachusetts DEP, I made a shocking announcement. There were 22 paper mills in Massachusetts that relied on waste paper for most or all of their feedstock, and if people didn't recycle these factories would close and a few thousand blue collar jobs would go away.

Having put myself through grad school driving a paper recycling truck, it was, to me, like an announcement that there are laundromats where people wash clothes. But it hit the front page of the Boston Globe, and I got my first earful from a Governor's (Weld) office about unauthorized leaks to the press.

Today, in a weird deja vu, I have been asked a lot of questions about the controversial theory that there are factories which buy 5000 used USA monitors per day, and that most developing countries do not throw away working CRT tubes. I have film of actual sitings of these 'bigfoot' monitor buyers. But people still doubt. If this was really true, why don't they come out and advertise themselves?

That reminds me of another previous Massachusetts job, trucking at Earthworm Recycling in Boston. It was back in the 1980s before Earth Day 1990 (the big rebirth one). We sold sorted office paper through middlemen to mills like the one in Erving MA which turned it into toilet paper. I thought they should tell people that their stuff isn't made from trees, it's made of recycled paper!! I know, that's done by companies like Marcal now... but when I called the mill guy to convince him, it was a blank stare over the phone.

Like trying to convince a restaurant owner to put a sign in the window... "Someone else ate off of our plates before you."

If you are in the business, its seems obvious, and if it doesn't seem obvious to YOU, then you must not be in the business. If you are not in the business, what benefit does the factory manager get from giving you a tour and telling you? Only harm can come. There is a Chinese expression, "do not be a crane among the chickens". It means if you just another white bird, don't stick your neck up and attract the farmer's attention... or you'll be next on the plate.

"Why would someone want to use my product if they knew it was made of used stuff?" the paper mill manager asked incredulously.

The market forces driving computer exports are on the same scale as paper recycling mills in the Northeast. Reuse and refurbishment factories are so ingrained in the business now that 50% of all computer sales are "white box", which frequently means some component - a repainted case, a refurbished power supply, a rebuilt floppy disk drive - is reuse and recycled.

In Septemer 2007, Harvard Business Review published an excellent article titled "The Battle for China's 'good enough' Market". In a previous blog, I went on and on about this.. about the repair and reuse market being a gateway to large scale manufacturing, about the secondary market being the only affordable option for most people in the world, about the protectionist intentions against reuse by established manufacturers, and about the tensions between sustainable reuse, counterfeiting, and 'obsolescence in hindsight'. The reason to repost is that I found some good photos and film clips of one of the factories I was talking about.

The point is not that all exports are good. The factory pictured is the size of a small airport, but they can only use about 65% of the monitors we get in. They use 5000 per day. If we shipped all of ours (including the Toxics Along for the Ride), we could be shipping 6750 per day, with 1750 winding up in piles surrounded by barefoot children.



The residue would start to add up. Every day, 1750 monitors would be added to the pile, stripped of copper and plastic, and in less than a week there would be more on the ground than the factory purchased in a day. There would be no pile to photograph in the factory... but head to the village. What the National Geographic or CBS Reporter sees is evidence that junk monitors are being dumped on top of barefoot children and set ablaze.

It is true this pollution is a biproduct of the reuse factory. The legal counsel for the owner of several of these factories told me they were not generating the pollution, but that they were "closing one eye" when they bought the good monitors through middlemen. Their solution was to support WR3A, to buy direct the monitors they need, and to invest in proper recycling of the residue. But in the meantime, they have to feed three shifts per day. So the imports to the village continue.

So is the solution to mine rain forests and make CRTs that will last 15 years, generating vast greenhouse gases in the smelting and production, and then grinding and disposing the working 5 year old monitors?

That cure would be worse than the disease. WR3A.org, World Computer Exchange, National Cristina Foundation, and others are following a "Fair Trade" path, seeking to reform the export practices while supporting the factories in these photos.

If you do a true lifecycle analysis, the recycling hierarchy (reduce, reuse, recycle) holds true in this industry. And what I like about it (and go on and on about in last week's blog), is that I saw 20 year old valedictorians with eyes of steel setting up these factories in Malaysia. I am trying to set one up with a women's coop in Mexico. These people are setting up TV and monitor manufacturing factories. Like little Samsung Sony dudes. Or more like Michael Dell, refurbishing IBM in his Texas dorm room. The Senegalese, The Egyptian, The Malaysian, The Taiwanese, The Mexican Women, The Burkinabes... they are not pirates or sleazebags.

They are the best goddam hope I have for peace and prosperity in the world. And the USA is setting up massive factories and laws to break the stuff, and cut them off at the knees. And it is good, green people doing it. I am growing hoarse.

One hope was Hwang, a Chinese government bureaucrate who represents the new product manufacturers, who in China are trying to kill these factories in order to preserve sales of outdated new CRT manufacturing. She was a very good person, in a government job. She arranged tours for me of any reuse village I asked to visit, of the reuse markets in Guangzhou, etc. When I expressed my fears that the Chinese government would try to put out of business the entrepreneurs in these reuse markets, she had a Taoist response... that as much as the government might one day try, it could not possibly control the reuse market.

Two of China's top 20 billionairs are repairmen (one bicycles, the other tractors). With your brain and someone else's discard, you can be an independent manufacturer.

What follows below is some of the best photos and film clips of one WR3A "secret factory" visits. Click twice below (on the green shirt guy)...



At this particular factory, they even took the old monitor casings, pelletized the platic in-house, and re-molded them into new monitor casings!! (adding black die).

I call this a "manufacturer take back program". But it's a white box manufacturer take back program. But they aren't really trying to take their own back... so it's a Remanufacturer Take First program.

So, I can also show you places to buy these TVs and monitors, which are the only ones that most India college students, Egyptian medical students, South American engineering students, etc. can buy. They cost a fraction of the cost of a new monitor, in a place where that fraction is a month's income.

Please allow reuse. I guess Maria Antoinette never actually said (when told that the peasants have no bread to eat), "let them eat cake!". But this idea that they should all get new laptops kind of sounds even more hideously clueless.

In the grey market world, these small manufacturers have the odds stacked against them. There are big competitors throwing logs on the tracks, who got the Chinese Communist Party to shut a lot of them down. It's like the "Catch Me if you Can" movie, they set back up in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. These guys are so damn good. I hope they win.