EPA Proudly Stops Egyptian Monitor Reuse? Err...

I was aware of the company.  I was aware of the market.  I think the EPA press release, below, is referring to the sentencing of the same St. Louis company "profiled" in the Basel Action Network blog. which I covered in Environmental Malpractice 5.1   The Michigan owned Missouri company was trying to stay in the reuse business... selling used CRT monitors to a hungry bunch of Egyptians.

Michigan Computer Company Owner Sentenced for International Environmental, Counterfeiting Crimes

In the year before the first "Arab Spring" revolt, in Iran, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was already beginning to feel the heat.   Iran's regime would survive, but Mubarak would be the second to face internet impeachment, after Tunisia and before Libya.  In the years running up to that revolt, Mubarak called used CRT monitors "e-waste" and made it illegal to import them if they were more than 5 years after the date of original manufacture.

Keep in mind that CRTs last 20-25 years, and keep in mind that the "original manufacture date" is typically a year before it's even sold at retail.   That means an American would have to buy the 25-year CRT, use it for three years, and then leave time for a collector to inspect it and send it to Egypt.

Discount Computers (and I know of one other doing this in the USA, and two in other countries), was taking the good CRTs which might be 6, 7, or 8 years old, and putting a new label, in Arabic, which said something like "remade on".   This would allow the Egyptian buyer, sometimes with the help of a bribe, to get the working and repairable CRTs into Alexandria and Cairo, where they were sold in shops like the ones I photographed in the blog about innocent "Hurricane Hamdy" (Environmental Malpractice).

Price of the mislabelled monitors?  The Egyptian importer in this story, according to EPA, paid $21 apiece.  That's Twenty-one US dollars... enough to make the mislabelling worth the trouble.

So why does EPA declare this? "By exporting older CRTs with fraudulent manufacture dates, Mark Jeffrey Glover sent a large quantity of older e-waste overseas which was subjected to improper recycling, increasing the potential for environmental and human exposure to hazardous materials. "


Profiling  Anyone?  Is this what we call  "environmental justice?"

Why Hasn't BAN Waived Banner?

CAER, ETBC, and BAN.org have been telling us all that most exports of used equipment to Africa are burned in primitive conditions, exploiting child workers.

So  this story a month ago should have been run up the flagpole, right?

The silence is deafening.

This INTERPOL arrest story was weeks after my "MALPRACTICE" blogs, bemoaning the arrests of Joseph Benson, Medi-com, Semarang and other GOC's.

We only get 200 or so readers per post.

Why didn't BAN, E-Stewards, somebody, run David Higgins INTEROL story up the flagpole?

They know this arrest scoop was over the top.

They know also, I say, their role in the Rosie Geek Parks arrests.

Arrests of e-waste export professional geeks is no longer a "flagpole" moment.  There is significant doubt every time an African fixer is arrested.  It is bubbling up the chain.  Expect David Higgins to hear, soon, that his massive racial profiling arrest is not quite as popular as it was ... in 1951 Alabama.

 #Benson #MediCom #Chiu

If you run an "e-waste export arrest" story, as BAN now knows, you WILL BE TAGGED.  The arrested will get a virtual trial of their peers #@fairtraderecycling

Constructive Fair Trade Recycling Breakthrough

So where do we go from here?

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
-- Mark Twain

"Loyalty to the environment always.  Loyalty to the environmentalists when they deserve it."  ---- Robin Ingenthron 

Below is a letter which I'd like to say I just received from the Basel Action Network and Electronic Takeback Campaign.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dear Robin, 

Our organization is very unhappy with your characterization of us, in your blog and public addresses.   Basel Action Network is driven by a mission of protecting the world's poor from externalization of toxics and toxic processes.   If a recycling process is going to permanently poison the groundwater, or pose risk to young mothers and children, BAN will not be intimidated.  The Basel Convention is an international treaty which recognizes the risks faced by the poor when the cost of toxics disposal rises, and we have been one of the sole organizations which holds the USA accountable for that standard. 

With that said, we have studied the allegations which you have made, and we are determined to behave as morally and as accurately as possible.    The three specific cases you have raised - of the arrest of Joseph Benson in England, of the seizure of goods from Medi-com of Egypt, and the unfair and defamatory characterization of shipments from Gordon Chiu's company to Semarang, Indonesia, appear to be something our organization should listen to and learn more about.  If it is true that these traders were unfairly profiled, or treated unfairly, based on BAN's characterization of the export market, we want to learn from their experiences, reassess our roles, and grow from it.

Just as your statements have been hurtful to our staff and volunteers, we recognize that statistics BAN has used, irregardless of our intentions, may have created collateral damage or been hurtful to genuine reuse and repair businesses in emerging markets.  We don't know that to be true, but we take the allegation seriously.  If our organization has said anything which has led to the arrest or seizure of goods from a legitimate business in the developing world, our organization will investigate, learn, and if appropriate, make amends. 

The studies you have cited about reuse, and the percentage of waste we filmed which was not imported but generated in these developing countries, raise genuine questions we were not able to consider when we began this campaign.  We are dedicated to the truth, and agree that effective policy must be  supported by facts.  With our combined expertise, we believe that Basel Action Network and Fair Trade Recycling can achieve a better outcome than if we continue with the he-said, she-said dialectic.   Let's improve on the quality of goods shipped, legally and ethically, without either obfuscating or apologizing for genuine pollution, nor mis-characterizing the efforts of entrepreneurs in these developing countries. 

Sincerely,

_______________________________________________________________________________
 This would deserve my loyalty:

Yes, this would be a really great letter to receive... it would deserve my loyalty, it would make them genuine environmentalists.   I've been hurt for standing up for innocent friends.  I nearly lost lynchpins in my $3M business.  I've had to defend myself from the assumption that anyone against BAN must be in favor of poisoning children.  The defamation was not just to my friends, it was to my business and its employees.

No.  But in the same vein, BAN, by being in favor of HR2284 and other conservative anti-trade policies, is not "in favor" of racial profiling, or Interpol arresting people who have purchased 90% working equipment.

If BAN could feel secure enough in their position to publicly address the allegations, and to actually consider the possibility that Joseph Benson, Gordon Chiu, and Hamdy Moussa, were innocent... If they would at least take down the "trophies" of press coverage when these men were hanged in a court of environmental tweetery... I could lay down my pen.

I invite them to write a letter from me.  We could each sign one another's letter, and it would be a huge success at the Vermont Fair Trade Recycling Summit.  They would steal the show.

We have to air the debate publicly try to arrive at a truer mark than "80% of e-waste is exported".  When you get a celebrity journalist to endorse your statistic, it's not totally your fault.  But when you see the stat run like a virus from celeb to celeb, at some point the victory must seem cold if the lives of innocents are trampled.

Such a letter would allow me to respond in kind by recognizing BAN's intentions with the E-Stewards program, without feeling that I was selling out people I genuinely think are innocent of most of the charges attributed to them.   I would see hope that the Watchdogs are willing to admit to the possibility of "collateral damage", to entertain the idea that they've made reckless accusations, and I would be invested in helping them understand this world trade better than they have.

I think Mike Enberg might have the guts to do this, and he'd find why Jim Puckett found me such a  friend 7-8 years ago.  At FTR, we don't know who calls the shots on the West Coast.  We know what keeps them from looking closely at collatoral damage.  If my writing has hurt someone somewhere in the world, I'd want to know the possibility.

Meriam-Webster on "Stewardship":   The conducting, supervising, or managing of something;especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care <stewardship of natural resources>

E-Waste Export Hoax Coming "Home" to Roost

Recycling Today reports on the US International Trade Commission Study - the fifth, I think, to say that between 80% and 90% of used electronics purchased (with money) and shipped (with more money) by Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans were working or repairable.

"Exports accounted for $1 billion in sales of refurbished UEPs and $439 million in recycled material.  According to the study, despite longstanding anecdotal accounts to the contrary, 88 percent of all UEPs exported as repaired/refurbished are sent “tested and working.” Only a small share of U.S. exports, less than 1 percent (0.8 percent), is sent overseas for disposal."

Is it any surprise that BAN.org was this week turning its Watchdog Binoculars onto USA E-waste processors who are speculatively accumulating crushed CRTs?  The NYTimes article barely mentions exports, its focus is all the money that has been paid for DOMESTIC USA recycling which has led to nothing but big piles of toxic glass on the ground.

I was tsk-tskd as going too far when I wrote the article last year, E-Waste Recycling Hoax.   Pleas to #freeJosephBenson never got a retweet.  Everyone (especially CAER) kept to the hymn that 80-90% of USA's CRT televisions and monitors are not being processed, but dumped in China and Africa.  The 85%, or 88%, or 87%, or 90% studies (of what arriving overseas is good for reuse) got no ink.

But now NYTimes says that NGOs are protesting the massive piles of CRT glass from tubes collected in the USA's domestic recycling programs.

 What does this picture say?

It says the Africa export story was indeed a hoax.   But Watchdogs have turned the page, and are poaching game in the USA's home turf.

Well, it's not a complete hoax.  There was some truth to Basel Action Network's export story.  In my passion to defend the Hurricanes (Hamdy, Benson, and Chiu) I don't want to pretend there is not serious room for improvement in e-waste recycling overseas. There are indeed toxic repercussions of burning wires, or using aqua regia acid to get gold.  There were, indeed, toxics along for the ride.  The exporters had the control, and the power, and externalization did result.  The problem is, a boycott took the agents of conscience out of the trade, and gave those with less conscience even greater power to leverage the demand, and sell into it.

Externalization economics had affected some aspects of the trade in used electronics.  Exactly as externalization economics have resulted in mining raw materials in rain forests, just as it led to the "anti-gray-market" seizure of used goods, challenges to first use policy, delayed patent exhaustion, and other wars on the poor.  Tinkering, fixing, and refurbishment isn't perfect.  It can indeed be reformed and made more fair. But tinkering and repair are the go-to game for the poor.   Arresting Africans, seizing their purchases, and putting them in jail just doesn't deserve the air time that it competes for with ivory hunting, sex tourism, and child soldiering.  Arresting the victims isn't my idea of restitution.

BAN's Jim Pucket was this week back in the NY Times, his camera binoculars set on USA CRT processing companies.  Once his darlings, are the domestic CRT processors now the next scourge of e-waste? Will BAN feed on its own, for speculatively accumulating CRT glass he told them to take apart despite the orders from overseas factories that wanted to repair and reuse them?

CAER is Wrong About E-Waste. Nice, Just Wrong.

Coalition For American Electronics Recycling (CAER) writes:

"We believe that currently about 80% of electronics claimed to be recycled in the US are really just “packed and stacked” into shipping containers and exported.  Aggregators of used electronics work through brokers to ship equipment overseas and get paid pennies per pound for this mixed assortment of electronics. We see solicitations from these brokers all the time.

"If this bill [HR2284] passes, we don’t expect it will completely shut off improper exports of used electronics, but we contend it will flip the equation so that 80% of electronics are processed in the US. Based on our experience, we create at least 7 jobs in refurbishment, demanufacturing or material processing for every job involved in packing and stacking electronics for export. This would lead to tremendous growth in the American electronics recycling industry through existing and new businesses.

CAER is full of good companies.  I'm not attacking those companies, I'm defending my friends overseas from their defamatory statements.  Just want to explain why these statements, on their website, are mistaken.

Since new e-waste blogger JHop has thrown his hat in the ring (comment on CAER report blog from January), we now have dialog.

The two paragraphs above are full of misinformation.  Perhaps, with the qualifier, "We believe", they can say whatever they want.  But no one in our business can really believe this.  No E-Waste Broker Fairy is transporting 80% of USA's used electronics in "stack and pack through brokers".

Impossible.  Here's why:

What is the #1 component of E-Waste collected in USA Programs?

TVs.  Big CRT TVs.

Show me a "stack and pack" operation exporting a significant number of TVs.   There is NO WAY that you can achieve 80% of USA E-waste "stack and pack" without the massive deportation of used televsions.  EPA says we are generating 50,000 used TVs per day.   That's about 100 containerloads per day... 80% is 80 sea containerloads per day, of JUST TVs.

No one at recycle.net, Alibaba.com, Exporters.com.sg, etc. is "packing or stacking" a significant number of USA's TVs.   I know of 2-3 used television buyers, but they are not buying 80% of USA e-waste, and they are pretty small operations and very particular of the TVs they buy.  The ones in Africa generally want very small TVs only (like the ones in Gentleman Jim's photo of Joseph Benson's containers), or very nice (e.g. hotel-takeout) TVs like the ones shrinkwrapped in the Greenpeace video.   AND NOW THEY CAN BUY THOSE USED CRT TVs FROM ASIA!  The USA isn't even a major export player anymore.