New Orleans Meeting on CA Compromise

Last month, we broadcast an appeal to the state of California:  "Dudes!  Legalize reuse!"  Now is the time to define what goes into the peace pipe.

WR3A, BAN, NRDC, CRRA and other environmental organizations are now, in principle, "on board" for the proposal to allow SB20 Approved Recyclers to propose allowing Manufacturer Takeback (the contract manufacturing factories which buy back working CRT monitors).  We will be setting a meeting sometime between 3PM and 5PM to take place at the "Prince of Wales" meeting room of the New Orleans Hilton on September 29.  The cost of the meeting room has been generously donated by E-Scrap News;  teleconference charges are donated by American Retroworks Inc.

The environmental organizations will formalize agreement on a definition of refurbishment which they believe to allow proper repair and refurbishment under the Basel Convention. While not every NGO agrees with every refurbishing practice, we have agreed that there are certainly SOME refurbishing practices which California could take advantage of, using the factories shown in this WR3A slide show. For example, if any monitor boards which might be replaced in an upgrade are removed prior to shipment, CRTs can be pulse-tested and exported to a CRT re-manufacturer, a compromise which appears compliant with either R2 or E-Steward Certifications.

Public awareness has grown that CA SB20 pays MORE to break the good units than these factories pay for working units, and that it has the following perverse consequences:

From Contract CRT Manufacturers Album

1. The factories cannot get vacuum-ok CRTs from "good" companies so they buy lower quality CRTs from cheaters.
2. Organizations like the UN are not able to get display units affordably (LCD prices still too high)
3. SB20 factories need to wait too long for the approval of their CRT glass disposition
4. California loses money.

Misunderstanding of Basel Convention rules has led to a "no intact unit" policy at many recycling companies, and at SB20.  Basel Action Network has been unfairly cited as the source of these rules, and is cooperating with WR3A to get the word out that reuse is not only legitimate, but that good recycling companies need to take advantage of the market rather than leave shortages which are filled by less scrupulous sellers.

DTSC has been one of the sources of confusion about Basel Convention and the requirement that CRT tubes must be "ruined" prior to export (through cancellation of the vacuum).    DTSC has also raised other obstacles, which we have put to rest one-by-one:

1. The revised cancellation language would require legislative authorization (FALSE - the legislation does not get into details and definitions of "vacuum")
2. The export for refurbishment would be opposed by BAN and other NGOs (FALSE - NGO's agree that "prohibition" is not good policy, and good companies should fill the demand)
3. The refurbished CRTs will be "double redeemed" for CA SB20 (FALSE - the factories overseas put the refurbished monitors into new boxes which, if ever resold in the USA, would go through retail outlets for ARF)

The WR3A's California Compromise meeting will introduce (via Skype) monitor refurbishing factory owners, UN officials, buyers in countries with demand for the refurbished CRTs, etc.   We hope to have language which can unanimously be submitted for recommendation by all SB20 companies plus the NGOs.  We will recommend an audit procedure to maintain very strict controls over what CRTs can be exported.  Then we will deliver this to the Governor, the head of DTSC, and the Sacramento Bee.

The language in California relative to the "cancellation requirement" can be found here (thanks to Jeff Hunts at CalRecycles for his assistance and good natured response to the "monkeys running the environmental zoo" post).

14 CCR 18660.32  (http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Laws/Regulations/Title14/Chap08pt2/Article2pt4.htm).  Those rules clearly lay out a method by which an approved recycler in the program may submit proposals for alternative cancellation methods.  See 18660.32(d)…

California Compromise: Upcoming Vote

Whether you are conservative (mostly against) used computer exports, or liberal (free trade, mostly for) computer exports, you will want to see the vote at E-Scrap 2010 - whether to support or not the "California Compromise".

California SB20 currently destroys 9,000 (nine thousand) CRTs (computer monitors and TVs) per DAY.


Should California continue to destroy all 9,000 CRTs per day, spending taxpayer dollars to break and recycle good working units?

Or should California allow some CRT monitors and TVs to be qualified as "tested working" for the export market (to countries which can never "double redeem" the deposits on the CRTs)?

We have a vacancy.  We are looking for an advocate for the current system, destroying all 9,000 monitors, with no reuse.   We  have 14 people lined up to vote for the California Compromise.  We would like all sides to be represented, so if you are against this compromise, please come forward.

We dare ya.  Come kick over our sandcastle.

We will eliminate excuses:

1) That Basel Convention bans export of working and refurbishable CRTs.
2) That California legislature banned the export of working and refurbishable CRTs.
3) That any disagreement exists between BAN E-Stewards, R2, or other certifications on export of working or refurbishable CRTs.

So far, everyone is in favor, with one notable "abstension" from CalRecycles (formerly CIWMB).

A more likely possibiltiy?  We will fill out all the forms and do everything asked of us, and time will pass.  The tide of the bureaucracy will slowly erase any evidence of our sandcastle.

Exports of Books and Used Clothing / Textiles

Good Ideas come from somewhere.   Usually from obvious experiences applied through analogy or cross-seeding between disciplines.

A couple of decades or so ago I was researching recycling exports generally and had not landed up to my antennaes in "e-waste" (I still dislike that term because of the way its misused).  I actually ran a thrift shop in Middlebury Vermont before opening Good Point Recycling... but there was no "cloth-waste" stigma around how we exported used clothing for the African market.

I had done research at Masschusetts DEP and found that Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, St. Vincent de Paul's and other charities were simply baling most of the clothes and sending them to third party sorting houses.  They would sell what they had local demand for, but most of the donations went in the baler.

The baled clothes were broken apart, usually in an immigrant-owned warehouse in Detroit, Canada, or Texas.   Women there further sorted the bags into super nice "vintage" stuff they could resell in boutique used clothing stores (cowboy boots were HOT) in NY or Hollywood... less than 5% of the goods but a healthy chunk of the income.  Then they sorted cottons and summer clothing for export to Africa - a trade I was familiar with from my years there in Peace Corps.

The winter stuff did not go into Africa bales, it was sorted as "industrial wiping rags" or shredded into filler for automobile seats or other upholstery (with fire retardant poured into the shredder), or the inside of baseballs - you know, the grey anonymous fluff stuff.

What they threw away mostly was single shoes (not much of a market for one-legged people) and this horrible western invention called "high heels" which the developing world thinks cause "hammertoes", is associated with prostitution, the sizes too small for African women's feet, and generally are b****t.

So the math was:

10-20%      Local thrift stores, vintage clothing boutique   = 80% income

40-50%      Export of wearable clothes, needing buttons or wacko t-shirt lettering, used paired shoes

10-30%      Upholstery, shop rags

10-20%      Trash, residue, high heels

Now sometimes I'd be contacted with an offer to ship directly overseas.  I found Haiti had a pretty decent sorting market, and Africa, but that used clothing had largely been banned in South America by the 1990s (they claimed it was to prevent "AIDS", but it was really a protectionist move created by the domestic textile industry that had moved there from the SE USA).

There is nothing toxic I know of in these used clothes, and no cases of "AIDS" virus transmitted by washed clothing, but if you ship directly, some of the stuff will be discarded overseas.  That's not a violation of Basel Convention if there's nothing toxic.  I was particularly open to selling used shoes overseas, if the women's shoes were removed - but I could only do that afford-ably if I used volunteers and "court diversion" labor (the stepsister of prison labor).

My questions:

1) What about books?  some get read, most get recycled.  Covers and bindings wind up as residue which gets burned or put in an unlined dump.   Should we shred or burn the books domestically?

2) What would be the opinion in the environmental community of shipping used shoes to Africa as compared to Nike's "reuse a shoe" program, where the nicest, highest demand sports shoes are shredded up and made into athletic tracks?

I find the second "shred a shoe" program to be an obnoxious, hostile to the poor, messed up invention subsidized by planned obsolescence in hindsight and nothing more.   I was so furious about the program in the 1990s that it no doubt colored my view of used electronics exports.   I tried to get onto the NRC (National Recycling Coalition) Board of Directors primarily to complain about the NRC's participation in the "reuse" a shoe program.  The year I ran, a mysterious accident occurred and an entire state delegation's votes were disqualified.  I am not suggesting a conspiracy, but I was told that my positions on Nike's grant to NRC were particularly unwelcome.

I have been branded ever since as a potential troublemaker to OEMs.   But really, I want them to see that the developing world is a way to "punt" the used product outside of their market.  They only lose sales if the used product is sold to someone in the "boutique" sphere, that people in Africa who buy used Nike's are not otherwise going to buy new Nikes.   And if you are going to put in a shoe shredder, why not locate it in Haiti, where the baseball-innerds, clothing shredders are?  There has to be a fair trade recycling method where diverting the "womens-shoes-along-for-the-ride" doesn't come at a cost of affordable shoes to people.

Burning all books or shredding all books is not a solution to the portion of unwanted, out of date textbooks, library books without covers, etc.  Let's set people up overseas to take our books and save the ones we are shredding up for tissue paper.  We can fair trade with them, offering them a discount on the good books if they will properly recycle the ones they cannot move, and give them the Amazon-bar-code-scanners so they can set aside the ones which still move on the used book market.

I'm writing this for the academics out there who may be attracted to the used electronics export business, the Basel Convention debate, and environmental policy.  Students of environmental policy don't have enough good hard academic stuff to read from.   I strongly suggest that the universities take on the controversy.  By studying the movement of used and second-hand articles which have no "toxics" associated with them, and studying how false "AIDS" labels have been attached to used and second hand clothing, we can start to tease out what is real and what is BS in the debate about "ewaste".

So that's a little background on Robin's history in the used goods exports to Africa business.  When I ran the thrift shop, I did everything I could to remove the single shoes.  We paired the high heels and tried to keep them separated just in case someone did want them... we got paid more for men's and childrens, but then no one wanted the high heels.

What makes me mad is when someone refuses to discuss the correct policy, circulates dogmas, and then finally after years they say they don't discuss it because I've written something when I was mad.  This is no chicken-or-egg debate, I am mad because people are using their soapbox to injure poor people.  The worker in the photo at left is not going to "leapfrog" into a new pair of Adidas.   If you ban the export of used shoes, or you applaud the shredding of perfectly decent shoes, you are robbing the USA of export commerce which is important to us, and hurting the buyers who cannot afford new.   If you call me names and say my position is self-serving, you piss me off because I invested in the market because I want to work with the export market, not because I want to make money.  Touche Pas a Mon Pote, dudes.

NYTimes: Boy Collecting Cans at Venezuela Landfill

Visiting the Venezuela Landfill Scavenger Recycling slide show, and the front page photo of the NYTimes this Sunday ... The cover photo shows a young Warao man at Cambalache with a bag of cans, climbing through the landfill, scavenging for steel value (photos by Meridith Kohut).

This same guy, without doubt, would be happy to find a computer with copper wire and coils to pull off.  The copper value would be higher than the steel and aluminum can value.

So, the questions is, did the West dump the steel cans there?  Should Del Monte, Goya and Budweiser face a call to take back the cans?  And if they did, presuming the optimal effect would be a Venezuela landfill with no metals or cans or copper wires, would the Warao boy's life improve?  In one photo a child eats a discarded orange.   If you take away the orange, will the kid "leapfrog" to a turkey dinner?

The mix of emotions over poverty and pollution can create a cognitive dissonance which results in bad solutions.  The environment is too precious, there is too little time to waste on environmental alchemy.  The E-waste advocates brought national attention and guilt to bear with photos of impoverished people in Africa and Asia scavenging metals and parts from added-value electronics.   Well and good so far, and we can all support less "toxics along for the ride".  But in the limelight, they concocted "solutions" to problems without data or study.   The solution is basically to tax orange growers and take oranges out of landfills which Warao children would eat. 

"We shouldn't have to make that choice."

It is aggravating that so much of my time this past decade has been spent stemming "friendly fire" by allies.  As a former Peace Corps volunteer, I assure you that the poor are the biggest scavenger-recyclers.  They are actually better off scavenging from rich people than poor people, but the free market is not enough.  Attacking their incomes does not reduce their poverty.   Fair trade, improving the living standards and recycling standards overseas, is the right approach.  

It is morally wrong to tell people you are sending cleaner scrap if all you are doing is sending less scrap.

Fair trade is morally and environmentally better than a boycott.  And the excuse that it is somehow, sadly, illegal is false.  The Basel Convention specficially established Annex IX in order to create a refuge for legal recycling trades, which though imperfect, are clearly different than disposal.

They say they don't respond to my fair trade entreaties because I am attacking them.  But the response to my reasoned posts has been, and I quote, "Stop directing people to Basel Convention Annex IX".   Stop people from reading the text of the convention????   I am feeling like Colin Powell must feel in the Republican Party (listening to him on Meet The Press right now, speaking in defense of immigration).

When environmentalists propose solutions they have not thought out, it can result in things like Kenya and China banning tested working used computers, or Egyptians shutting down the scavenging Zabaleen, the Coptic Christian recyclers I wrote about in 2009.

WR3A Applauds ICRS For "Scholarship" - International Geeks Coming to Recycling Conference

ICRS 2010 Scholarship Finalists - Overseas Techies invited to recycling conference