A comment left by Jim Puckett of BAN (see comments below for full text) states;
"the "tested, working" way, is not BAN's way, but the correct interpretation of the Basel Convention and "tested, and working" requirements are now being put forth in the new WEEE directive in Europe, in Australian law and will be quickly spreading around the world."
We need to dissect this into two separate discussions, the legal interpretation, and the environmental and social outcome. I'm prepared to argue either way that repair and refurbishment has to be nurtured and supported.
Legally, I have posted the explicit language of the Basel Convention Annex IX several times before, it does not say "tested working" anywhere, and if that is what was meant, why on earth does the convention language specifically say that repair and refurbishment are legal, and that some countries consider the repairable items "commodities and not wastes"? And why then is BAN having to lobby states in the EU and Australia to adapt their "interpretation" if it is so obvious? Jim's own quote above specifically acknowledges that BAN is working on the EU and Australia to adapt a "tested working" standard and acknowledges that this is an "interpretation" of the Convention. The language in section B1110, if it meant tested working prior to export, seems a long way to go about saying "tested working" if that's what is meant.
But we will accept Jim Puckett's affirmation that this is subject to interpretation. Which then is the better interpretation from a social and environmental point of view?
Environmentally, here's the thing: 22.5% of the equipment is repairable and reuseable - that's from domestic municipal sources. If E-Stewards actually wind up testing and shipping 22.5% as working product, I'll embrace it. If the Stewards adapt tested working as a standard, but to not actually hire Americans to repair and test the equipment, and they only wind up shipping off-lease working equipment and shred up all the municipal equipment, then they failed.
There is a slice of humanity, about 3 billion people, earning about $3000 per year, who are gaining internet access at a rate 10 times the rate in the USA.
Probably not by buying new computers. This is about getting them the computers they can afford. I am looking for ways make sure that computers exported for repair have a lower residue rate than tested working shipmnets (no one I know shipping tested working is actually doing the inventory at the receiving end the way we are doing with the factory refurbishing operations). Through proper reuse, repair and refurbishment, we will lower the cost of recycling, reward the "yankee ingenuity" of the developing world, and meet the insatiable demand for internet. If BAN's eSteward standard meets that same demand with working product, we'll learn how they are doing it and join. But if the USA companies meet the standard by grinding everything up in to metals and plastics, refusing to either repair themselves or to allow qualified overseas factories to repair it, then I'm out.
Rare footage of Craig Lorch (Total Reclaim) performing a favorite tune of mine?
Health Care? In an ewaste blog?
Ok, I am working on a much longer post on R2, RIOS, and ESteward certification, which was finished afterwards but posted below due to editing constraints. Meanwhile, here is the 360 second explanation of the health care insurance debate, from the perspective of a recycler.
First, my wife is European and lived there with my kids for a year, and we have experience in both systems. Second, my company, with 20 USA employees, is right on the line of mandatory coverage, so we can lay one person off to avoid mandates for the other 19 (if that was our interest). Third, most of our employees are "ten foot tall and bullet-proof", twenty somethings who don't tend to want the optional health insurance we offer, and probably only need catastrophic.
I think the debated points, positive and negative, are being exaggerated. It is easiest to argue against a "straw man", for liberals to describe the positions of Rush Limbaugh, for the conservatives to debate against Michael Moore. They are playing hard football with the facts, and both sides are doing end runs and hail Marys to advance the ball. Here are some basic facts:
1) We all die someday. The closer we get to that day, the more expensive our care.
2) Since the average age of death in the USA is over 75, and Medicare starts at 65, the "public option" is already in place for the most expensive care. The public system already bit off the most expensive and difficult part of the job.
3) The cost of health care always includes a lot of "overhead". If I am a hospital administrator, and just bought a brand new emergency room for $10M, I have to pay for that whether or not people are using it. This exaggerates the claim on "non-covered" people who use the emergency room as a walk-in clinic. The question is efficient use of the emergency room, that is what "triage" is about. If the ER is empty, treating a cut finger and charging $2000 to "uninsured" sounds terrible, if you want it to, but having an empty room also costs pretty close to $2000.
To simplify the analysis, let's pretend the debate is over computer repair rather than human being repair. Assume we are trying to make every computer last as long as possible, or realistically, 15 years, through upgrades and parts replacements. The 10 year + computers we'll call "grandmas", the dual core Pentium 4s we can call "children".
Right now the system is that the government pays for repair of 10 year old and older computers, through Medicare. That is basically saying we have already swallowed the largest part of the elephant. Insuring children, the Pentium 4 dual-cores, was relatively easy and most states have adapted programs for that on their own. Pentium 3s, if they are covered, are mostly covered by the employer who outsources the repair bills to private insurance companies.
The debate is now on who repairs the uninsured Pentium 3s. Some of the P3s work fine, and therefore don't want to buy insurance, and when something DOES go wrong they are shocked at the price of a replacement stick of RAM. Other Pentium 3s have recently had a replacement or are paying insurance for repair and upgrade, and seeing their costs go up as they age.
The acceptable speed of a computer keeps changing, and the technology exists to put hard drives into a P3 which can, for example, store movies. The bandwidth makes that not a great investment, but if you put a name on the computer, like "Cindy", you can see the analogy. "Cindy used to run marathons, now she needs knee surgery." Or, "Her hard drive size is a pre-existing condition, and she cannot afford the hard drive to watch the movie."
The left focuses on the doe-eyed personalization, or poster child, and we all want to see Cindy do well. "Move that bus!", we cry, and we applaud to see Cindy with a new hip replacement / hard drive, storing WMV files. We hope that new medicines or software will provide future cures that allow Cindy to win marathons again.
The right focuses on the costs of repairing 13 year old computers, and says that if computers cost this much, imagine the cost of insuring all computers. Most repair-people are shying away from repairing the older computers already, and they hate bickering with the public insurance system over who pays the cost of the software for the Pentium 1. Most of the future will be defined by software yet to be written, like cancer cures or new genetic medicines.
The actual cost of the system will be defined by overhead divided by computer repairs. The left is right, that bringing more computers into the repairshop will lower the cost per repair by dividing the overhead over more PCs. The right is left with the equally correct observation, that you will wait in a longer line, because ten-foot-tall-bulletproof Ken is now covered for his broken foot and has to fill out paperwork to be covered, rather than going to the ER and running off on his bill, which allowed the hospital to overstate the costs they were not to blame for. Pentium 3s covered for new hard drives now will benefit from larger scale purchases of hard drives, but will wait longer through more administration to get them.
Uninsured people in ERs can be a pretty efficient "triage" if it is not a malingering or long-term health problem. And we already have the most expensive people (Medicare) covered. The question for me is how do we arrive at a spiritual place where people can die with dignity and celebrate the past life, like they did in Cameroon when I was there in Peace Corps. We held a "big cry" for the Pentium 2 when it passed, and a "big die" celebration and dancing six months later in remembrance of our dearly departed P2, but no one thought for an instant that death was something we were going to avoid.
The biggest problem in government is managing bills through obfuscation and "shark attack" panics (big press to extremely ill-representative problems). Referendums in places like California and Arizona bring the process "back to the people", who vote:
1) Balance the budget
2) Spend more on schools and health care
3) Cut taxes
The result is deficits and a broken currency system, followed by stimulus packages to be divvied out to lucky "connected" people. The more astute folks, like Tom Friedman, point to all the other benefits (environmental) of the EU gasoline taxes which pay for their systems, but EU doesn't have senators from western states with high miles-to-population which makes getting a gas tax harder to swallow for people not riding the subway to work. The left says the answer is rail, basically putting subways in more western states, which is probably the most asinine suggestion floating around. European populations grew up around rails, USA grew up around cattle trails, the math is different.
The left makes us want to love the P3 with cancer which was a loyal and hard worker. The right wants to blame the high cost of a hospital built in an area with declining population to define the cost of repairing that P3. It's an ugly, muddy game of football where most people only know enough to root for their home team, without knowing the names of the players or the rules.
Enough for now. It is not that expensive or difficult to repair P3s, but it is not very profitable. But it is more profitable than the Medicare system for P2s. And the bills and deficits are being passed down to the
First, my wife is European and lived there with my kids for a year, and we have experience in both systems. Second, my company, with 20 USA employees, is right on the line of mandatory coverage, so we can lay one person off to avoid mandates for the other 19 (if that was our interest). Third, most of our employees are "ten foot tall and bullet-proof", twenty somethings who don't tend to want the optional health insurance we offer, and probably only need catastrophic.
I think the debated points, positive and negative, are being exaggerated. It is easiest to argue against a "straw man", for liberals to describe the positions of Rush Limbaugh, for the conservatives to debate against Michael Moore. They are playing hard football with the facts, and both sides are doing end runs and hail Marys to advance the ball. Here are some basic facts:
1) We all die someday. The closer we get to that day, the more expensive our care.
2) Since the average age of death in the USA is over 75, and Medicare starts at 65, the "public option" is already in place for the most expensive care. The public system already bit off the most expensive and difficult part of the job.
3) The cost of health care always includes a lot of "overhead". If I am a hospital administrator, and just bought a brand new emergency room for $10M, I have to pay for that whether or not people are using it. This exaggerates the claim on "non-covered" people who use the emergency room as a walk-in clinic. The question is efficient use of the emergency room, that is what "triage" is about. If the ER is empty, treating a cut finger and charging $2000 to "uninsured" sounds terrible, if you want it to, but having an empty room also costs pretty close to $2000.
To simplify the analysis, let's pretend the debate is over computer repair rather than human being repair. Assume we are trying to make every computer last as long as possible, or realistically, 15 years, through upgrades and parts replacements. The 10 year + computers we'll call "grandmas", the dual core Pentium 4s we can call "children".
Right now the system is that the government pays for repair of 10 year old and older computers, through Medicare. That is basically saying we have already swallowed the largest part of the elephant. Insuring children, the Pentium 4 dual-cores, was relatively easy and most states have adapted programs for that on their own. Pentium 3s, if they are covered, are mostly covered by the employer who outsources the repair bills to private insurance companies.
The debate is now on who repairs the uninsured Pentium 3s. Some of the P3s work fine, and therefore don't want to buy insurance, and when something DOES go wrong they are shocked at the price of a replacement stick of RAM. Other Pentium 3s have recently had a replacement or are paying insurance for repair and upgrade, and seeing their costs go up as they age.
The acceptable speed of a computer keeps changing, and the technology exists to put hard drives into a P3 which can, for example, store movies. The bandwidth makes that not a great investment, but if you put a name on the computer, like "Cindy", you can see the analogy. "Cindy used to run marathons, now she needs knee surgery." Or, "Her hard drive size is a pre-existing condition, and she cannot afford the hard drive to watch the movie."
The left focuses on the doe-eyed personalization, or poster child, and we all want to see Cindy do well. "Move that bus!", we cry, and we applaud to see Cindy with a new hip replacement / hard drive, storing WMV files. We hope that new medicines or software will provide future cures that allow Cindy to win marathons again.
The right focuses on the costs of repairing 13 year old computers, and says that if computers cost this much, imagine the cost of insuring all computers. Most repair-people are shying away from repairing the older computers already, and they hate bickering with the public insurance system over who pays the cost of the software for the Pentium 1. Most of the future will be defined by software yet to be written, like cancer cures or new genetic medicines.
The actual cost of the system will be defined by overhead divided by computer repairs. The left is right, that bringing more computers into the repairshop will lower the cost per repair by dividing the overhead over more PCs. The right is left with the equally correct observation, that you will wait in a longer line, because ten-foot-tall-bulletproof Ken is now covered for his broken foot and has to fill out paperwork to be covered, rather than going to the ER and running off on his bill, which allowed the hospital to overstate the costs they were not to blame for. Pentium 3s covered for new hard drives now will benefit from larger scale purchases of hard drives, but will wait longer through more administration to get them.
Uninsured people in ERs can be a pretty efficient "triage" if it is not a malingering or long-term health problem. And we already have the most expensive people (Medicare) covered. The question for me is how do we arrive at a spiritual place where people can die with dignity and celebrate the past life, like they did in Cameroon when I was there in Peace Corps. We held a "big cry" for the Pentium 2 when it passed, and a "big die" celebration and dancing six months later in remembrance of our dearly departed P2, but no one thought for an instant that death was something we were going to avoid.
The biggest problem in government is managing bills through obfuscation and "shark attack" panics (big press to extremely ill-representative problems). Referendums in places like California and Arizona bring the process "back to the people", who vote:
1) Balance the budget
2) Spend more on schools and health care
3) Cut taxes
The result is deficits and a broken currency system, followed by stimulus packages to be divvied out to lucky "connected" people. The more astute folks, like Tom Friedman, point to all the other benefits (environmental) of the EU gasoline taxes which pay for their systems, but EU doesn't have senators from western states with high miles-to-population which makes getting a gas tax harder to swallow for people not riding the subway to work. The left says the answer is rail, basically putting subways in more western states, which is probably the most asinine suggestion floating around. European populations grew up around rails, USA grew up around cattle trails, the math is different.
The left makes us want to love the P3 with cancer which was a loyal and hard worker. The right wants to blame the high cost of a hospital built in an area with declining population to define the cost of repairing that P3. It's an ugly, muddy game of football where most people only know enough to root for their home team, without knowing the names of the players or the rules.
Enough for now. It is not that expensive or difficult to repair P3s, but it is not very profitable. But it is more profitable than the Medicare system for P2s. And the bills and deficits are being passed down to the
Rare earth metals, electronics recycling, and China
Here is an article in this morning's New York Times about an investment rush to mining for specialty and exotic metals. These are found in profound percentages in old electronics.
There is already a flurry of investment buzz about electronics recycling due to the discussion of raising mineral royalties costs from mining under the General Mining Act of 1872, which passed the House of Representatives last year and again this year. Tanzania is the latest country to reform its GMA from 1998, from a period when the World Bank required countries to adapt USA's 1872 standard in order to get mining loans.
The mining industry news is a good source of information for recyclers.
There is already a flurry of investment buzz about electronics recycling due to the discussion of raising mineral royalties costs from mining under the General Mining Act of 1872, which passed the House of Representatives last year and again this year. Tanzania is the latest country to reform its GMA from 1998, from a period when the World Bank required countries to adapt USA's 1872 standard in order to get mining loans.
The mining industry news is a good source of information for recyclers.
R2 and RIOS versus E-Stewards: Ewaste Predictions
After several meetings with several players in the climb to "ewaste authority", between BAN, ISRI, EPA, GAO, and others, I think I can make a few predictions.
1) E-Stewards will take too long.
2) TV Recycling will be left behind
3) Reuse economics will struggle
4) Mexico will emerge on top
5) Investments will pour in where there is volume, regardless of the margins (a mistake)
BAN is trying to sit on its hands and let independent auditors work with the various stewards, and that's a good move. But some of the e-Stewards are already doing something BAN disagrees with - defining "functional" in the R2 way (the components the buyer wants are guaranteed, the buyer can replace and upgrade as they wish) rather than the BAN way ("tested working", with no parts to be replaced or upgraded after purchase). And there may be other definitions BAN objected to in the R2 discussions, such as "de minimus" quantities of circuit boards from shredding operations. But BAN has trouble saying "yes" to processes they don't understand, and this will slow them down, forcing them to criticize R2.
The highest margins in our business are for relatively low-volume, high-margin, "risk averse" clients with off-lease laptops and Pentium 4s. Companies like Intechra and Redemtech will be the first to ante up and get certification, perhaps both certifications. Companies like mine will not lose a single mixed-load, TV carrying client to those companies. There may be a couple of TV processors who will get the certification, but they will prove unable to pass those costs along as a benefit if fewer than 15 TV-processing companies become certified.
The 22.5% of our material in Vermont which was sold for reuse and repair generated more than 50% of our income, which is rewarding. However, it will be harder to follow downstream and certify. Companies which ignore the reuse market, or reuse only commercial off-lease equipment (insignificant residential reuse) will find it easier to get certified, but will be forced to pass the costs - not just of certification itself, but of lost reuse revenue - on to municipal clients who will not feel forced to buy in if other companies (moi) can convince them it's dumb to dump a 1999 TV into a shredder. So they will promote legislation.
Where legislation passes, the certified will win, and will get certified by reusing less and passing the higher costs through to the legislated OEMs. The computer and printer manufacturers will be able to accept those costs because the "white box" or "clone" markets are growing at a wicked fast pace, and recycling costs are seen as an offset against "market cannabalization". The TV companies, however, which have far more tonnage, have no skin in that game, and will see the entire system as stacking up against them.
Our strategy is to convince the TV companies that reuse and repair can be a good news story, by focusing on companies like Retroworks de Mexico, and the jobs and lives improved by Las Chicas Bravas. TVs are too big and heavy, and too light in specialty metals, to be shipped to China. Repair and reuse, and increasingly the CRT glass, will move to Mexico.
Why write up my strategies? Because of point #5. It will take longer to certify the reuse component, and the legislation-pushed volume will entice investment (which we expect a lot of) into the black-box, shred-and-send-the-bill-to-OEM, system. We have to provide a business plan not just for our own investors, but to signal investors we haven't met not to participate in a pyramid scheme with shredders. The Mexico strategy has a precedent - all TV manufacturing and assembly jobs moved to Mexico in the 90s. It's not exactly a crazy idea. If it is done right, Americans will prefer paying 5 cents per pound in Mexico to 20 cents per pound north of the border. But metals and recycling and USGS predictions mean that we don't have long before investors start pouring in... which is why I post about mining pretty often.
Good points are not just to win investors, they are to stall investments in our opponents.
1) E-Stewards will take too long.
2) TV Recycling will be left behind
3) Reuse economics will struggle
4) Mexico will emerge on top
5) Investments will pour in where there is volume, regardless of the margins (a mistake)
BAN is trying to sit on its hands and let independent auditors work with the various stewards, and that's a good move. But some of the e-Stewards are already doing something BAN disagrees with - defining "functional" in the R2 way (the components the buyer wants are guaranteed, the buyer can replace and upgrade as they wish) rather than the BAN way ("tested working", with no parts to be replaced or upgraded after purchase). And there may be other definitions BAN objected to in the R2 discussions, such as "de minimus" quantities of circuit boards from shredding operations. But BAN has trouble saying "yes" to processes they don't understand, and this will slow them down, forcing them to criticize R2.
The highest margins in our business are for relatively low-volume, high-margin, "risk averse" clients with off-lease laptops and Pentium 4s. Companies like Intechra and Redemtech will be the first to ante up and get certification, perhaps both certifications. Companies like mine will not lose a single mixed-load, TV carrying client to those companies. There may be a couple of TV processors who will get the certification, but they will prove unable to pass those costs along as a benefit if fewer than 15 TV-processing companies become certified.
The 22.5% of our material in Vermont which was sold for reuse and repair generated more than 50% of our income, which is rewarding. However, it will be harder to follow downstream and certify. Companies which ignore the reuse market, or reuse only commercial off-lease equipment (insignificant residential reuse) will find it easier to get certified, but will be forced to pass the costs - not just of certification itself, but of lost reuse revenue - on to municipal clients who will not feel forced to buy in if other companies (moi) can convince them it's dumb to dump a 1999 TV into a shredder. So they will promote legislation.
Where legislation passes, the certified will win, and will get certified by reusing less and passing the higher costs through to the legislated OEMs. The computer and printer manufacturers will be able to accept those costs because the "white box" or "clone" markets are growing at a wicked fast pace, and recycling costs are seen as an offset against "market cannabalization". The TV companies, however, which have far more tonnage, have no skin in that game, and will see the entire system as stacking up against them.
Our strategy is to convince the TV companies that reuse and repair can be a good news story, by focusing on companies like Retroworks de Mexico, and the jobs and lives improved by Las Chicas Bravas. TVs are too big and heavy, and too light in specialty metals, to be shipped to China. Repair and reuse, and increasingly the CRT glass, will move to Mexico.
Why write up my strategies? Because of point #5. It will take longer to certify the reuse component, and the legislation-pushed volume will entice investment (which we expect a lot of) into the black-box, shred-and-send-the-bill-to-OEM, system. We have to provide a business plan not just for our own investors, but to signal investors we haven't met not to participate in a pyramid scheme with shredders. The Mexico strategy has a precedent - all TV manufacturing and assembly jobs moved to Mexico in the 90s. It's not exactly a crazy idea. If it is done right, Americans will prefer paying 5 cents per pound in Mexico to 20 cents per pound north of the border. But metals and recycling and USGS predictions mean that we don't have long before investors start pouring in... which is why I post about mining pretty often.
Good points are not just to win investors, they are to stall investments in our opponents.
R2 Standards and eWaste Practices document
The EPA "R2" Responsible Recycling standards and practices agreement was typed up by Jonathan Lingelbach of www.decideagree.com, who served as moderator. My next post will be comments and predictions...
R2 Practices decideagree2008
R2 Practices decideagree2008
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