FIREHOSE: Werner: Where there is no Doctor

Flashback to Peace Corps.  Each of us was given a copy of David Werner's book, "Where there is no doctor".  I'm looking for copies to give my teenagers for when they leave the home.  It was basic good sense, and I learned things I still rely on today.  From today's wikipedia:

Where There Is No Doctor: A village health care handbook is the most widely used health education book in tropical and sub-tropical developing countries. Based on David Werner's experiences at his Project Piaxtla in western Mexico, it was originally written in 1970 in Spanish as Donde No Hay Doctor. It has since been revised multiple times, has sold over one million copies and been translated into over 100 languages. The book is available for purchase, in either book form or on CD, at Hesperian's bookstore. Because the non-profit publisher's mission is making health information readily accessible to everyone, portions can also be download free-of-charge in pdf format.

FIREHOSE BLOG: Madness vs. Persistent Irrational Belief

How many "E-waste" Experts and E-Waste Studies does it take to show that material like THIS

Is not paid for, shipped and delivered to, places like THESE?

We know who the buyers are.  We know they have no interest in buying the material that BAN.org shows in photos.   We know the factories are operating in cities overseas which have had TVs and computers for years, and who generate more e-waste on their own than we do per year in the USA (they have less storage space in attics and closets).

Can someone please explain to me the persistent irrational belief by Watchdogs that the municipal material shown in the first photo is being exported in any significant quantity to Africa or Asia?

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.

Fair Trade Recycling Summit - Theme Song Lyrics

USA, Mexico, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Netherlands compare notes on discarded printers

Let the trade be.  Let Africans buy what they want to buy.  Give it to them for even less if they will set up hand dismantling recycling centers.  Give "takeback" to the techs and refurbishers, not the companies making expensive new products that Africa cannot afford.

Fair Trade Recycling Summit Now Online

The streaming by Middlebury is captured on USTREAM online.  We've had 156 235 online participants (so far).

I'm listening over again to key parts of the Summit.  In Jon Isham's class, Katharina Kummer Peiry (outgoing chief at the Basel Convention Secretariat) describes how the "group of 77" developing nations first negotiating as "developing nations" has changed.  When extremely advanced economies like Brazil and Singapore are put side by side with Lesotho, Chad and Sudan, the functionality of the Basel Convention begins to tear.

Frederic Fahiri Somda of Burkina Faso opened the discussion (in French) by speaking about the huge difference between drums of toxic waste solvents dumped on African beaches (a Basel enforcement he strongly supports) in contrast with the cell phones and internet ready computers, which he says are more important and vital to Africa today than paved roads, electricity and running water.   He said it was obvious to Africans that buying brand new computers and cell phones was a false solution.   People earning under $3000 per year are getting online at ten times the rate of people in rich countries.  Arresting the Africans who risk their money and reputations to bring those computers to their home countries is a perverse misuse of the convention.

Kyle Wiens spoke from California on the complex negotiations over repair manuals, and the conflict of interest between certain shredding companies and certain original manufacturers and the secondary market.  Reed Miller and Andrea Boron presented data from their research, which emphasized the importance of the secondary market, not just in tonnage, but in value and jobs created.  Selling a computer monitor for $21 to Egypt is nothing like dumping the monitor on a beach, and even comparing the two is ignorant.

Adam Minter of ShanghaiScrap.com described the evolution of circuit recycling in places like Guiyu and India.  Chips are actually reused, and the leftover chips are now sold to very high tech smelters in Belgium and Japan.   Wire burning is rather obsoleted by new equipment that reuses the wire casings.

Oscar Adrian Orta of Mexico, Muhammed Wahab Odoi of Ghana, and Eric Prempeh of Good Point Recycling (orginally a Ghana Tech), put a human face on the buyers, users, repairers and generators of e-scrap in poorer cities around the globe.   The e-waste filmed outside those cities, they said, had been generated by users inside the cities, used and repaired for years, and that the conflation of imports with dumps is no more correct in Africa than it would be to assume Japan is sending junk cars to the USA, because we see the used cars at Toyota, Nissan, and Honda dealerships.

I'll blog more about the Summit when I have time to listen to more.

The highlight to me was meeting Interpol's Therese Shryane, who participated via Skype from Europe.  She described the Christmas Arrests of traders in used computers sourced in Europe and destined for Africa.   Adelaide Rivereau, our own intern from Europe (France) described here "training" in E-Waste in her masters program as consisting of ten year old Basel Action Network video.   Adelaide made a crystal clear point (in an adorable French accent), that if the enforcement community is trained via propaganda films, that the unintended consequences are to be expected as more of a norm than an outlier.  Lynn Rubinstein of NERC.org showed intense understanding of Adelaide's point... as the educator of American regulators, NERC has distinguished itself by participating in R2 (Responsible Recycling), one of the lead organizations in defending "geeks of color" overseas.

The end of the Summit brought the only terse words - between Martijn van Engelan of Holland, and an attendee from Panasonic.  The OEM had said that they couldn't risk their stock and brands being attacked by environmentalists, even if the attacks were unfounded.   Martijn challenged Panasonic on moral grounds to stand up to the "liars".   This slide show (link), includes film of one former contract manufacturing assembly factory for Panasonic products in Southeast Asia.  When the company no longer got orders from Panasonic to make new CRTs, they began buying used ones from the USA, and refurbishing them with brand new boards for sale in India, Mideast, and Africa.

We greatly appreciated David's participation in the Summit, but listening to the final 13 minutes, I think Martijn has a point.  If Panasonic will not even defend its own ISO14001 vetted subcontractors, then they cannot defend their own warranty returns.   We have seen how the "watchdogs" turned on a dime in the NY Times coverage of CRT glass piles.   The CRT glass piles are in the USA, not overseas (where the Watchdogs falsely said 80% of them went).   If the Watchdog can so quickly turn and bite the hand of the shredders, they will turn on Panasonic, Sony and Dell's upstream assembly partners and contract manufacturers.   Failing to defend your assemblers is a mistake Apple almost made with Foxconn.

Americans may think that six billion people in the world wear grass skirts and suffer starvation because they cannot distinguish between a photo taken at a city dump and a description of engineering and original design manufacturing of display devices and smartphones.  But the failure of American Geography classes does not extend to the rest of the world, which is today the largest market for companies like Panasonic.  If they think their sales are going to be hurt in America by failing to stand up for their partners, perhaps they should consider the benefits of multicultural friendships.

That's has been my takeaway from trading overseas.   At yesterday's Fair Trade Recycling Summit, we tried to make it a "giveaway".