Illegally Traded and Dumped E-Waste Worth up to $19 Billion Annually Poses Risks to Health, Deprives Countries of Resources says UN Report
"a rapid response assessment"
“Inconsistency in Cross-Border Regulations Challenge to Effective Control of Illegal Waste Trafficking”. This is the sub-headline of the United Nations Environmental Programme’s May 12, 2016, press release. The headline of the report states the trade is worth $19 billion, poses risks to health, and deprives countries (European countries) of resources.
Say this slowly. Inconsistency in regulations... between countries... is a challenge to arresting people... for illegal activity... because it's not illegal.... in the other country? And therefore (by not making second hand goods illegal), the second country is "depriving (Europe) of resources?"
Four "e-waste experts" are on the team of 16 authors. I've highlighted their names at the bottom.
We counted 43 photos in the report, eight of which are taken at Accra scrapyard Agbogbloshie.
And the adjectives..."primitive", "informal", "deplorable"...
These are the insults slung at the geeks of color, the workers in Africa's tech sector and manual disassembly operations. Perhaps, the authors "assessed" and "responded" too "rapidly". My own report has been slowed down, in contrast. I planned 10 pages, but was dealt with two curve balls on my return to the USA. First, Interpol announced a big EWaste (CWIT) meeting in Lyon, France - where I already have a ticket (was going to be there anyway). The CWIT features another 2010 performance by Jim Puckett and Mike Anane.
How about this for a response? READ YOUR OWN DARN REPORT NUMBERS!!!
Doubt I have ever seen such an incompetently written press release. To rebut the UNEP's headline, look at the report's own figures. It appears the authors were so excited by the prospect of more funding that they looked only at the black children posed on obscure lonely pieces of Ghana generated e-waste (imported 20 years earlier, now discarded), and didn't study the numbers in the report itself. THE REPORT DISPROVES ITS OWN HEADLINE. If that's not a key indicator of Racial Profiling, I'm not sure what's a better one.
The UNEP Report announced that ten European Countries in 2012 (year of the E-Waste Country Assessments in Nigeria and Ghana, finding 85%-91% reuse) shipped 2,929 tonnes of "e-waste" (or reuse, the report doesn't specify) to five countries - 4 in West Africa plus Pakistan. Ghana is profiled as the biggest target, and eight photos of Agbogbloshie illustrate the case.
Spoiler - our analysis was that Agbogbloshie manages (outside of cars and white goods) about 910,000 POUNDS (not tons) of electronics scrap, delivered by hand cart from street collectors in Accra. This week Scrap Magazine (p.78) publishes an article by Adam Minter (Junkyard Planet author), who we met in Agbogbloshie. The cover page photo shows how most of the material is delivered.
See below left. By hand cart. Pickup trucks on occasion. Zero sea containers. But access roads into Agbogbloshie and outgoing wire, plastic, and circuit board (bottleneck) weights support the estimates of the workers there. Agbogbloshie manages between 20-50 pieces (TVs, VCRs, computers) per day. The pieces on the ground in the UNEP (Kevin McElvaney) photos look like they've been there a long time. And they have been.
About 910,000 pounds per year. Disassembled by hand, delivered by hand cart.
Now look at the UNEP Report figures, configured below.
Convert 2,929 million tonnes (metric) to pounds (x 2200) = 6,443,800,000 lbs. Six billion per year, from ten countries - not including the USA or Asia - of "e-waste". Divide 910k by 6,443,800k.
One of the five largest destinations handles about one fiftieth of one percent.
Two conclusions are possible... if one assumes 100% of the material at Agbogbloshie is imported from Europe, and none of it was used for decades in Accra (which had tens of thousands of households with TV in the 1990s), then:
- Although Agbogbloshie is on the top 5 destinations list, it manages only about 2 percent of ONE percent (0.0002) of Europe's "ewaste".
- UNEP and Interpol are using Secondary Market (non-scrap, reuse) numbers in their "e-waste dumping" statistic.
Of course, if at least half of Agbogbloshie's volume was domestically generated, and the imports are one percent of one percent, the UNEP Report (shockingly) tries to explain that...
If the latter, the $19B suddenly becomes confusing if not meaningless. Africans buying used laptops on ebay is certainly legal... and Ebay has annouonced a $195 billion dollar market selling to emerging markets. Who knows what percentage of $195b is used electronics. But if it's 10%, then UNEP's $19B number looks low.
Below is an analysis of the UNEP Report which I've had to cut from my report (in order to respect my page limit). It begins with UNEP making the massive case for millions of tons, then shows how Interpol's seizures only implicate 2-3 times the 9-15% waste estimate of the E-Waste Assessment studies. Interpol accuses one third of the shipments of containing some waste.
It covers 6 observations about the report, Debate Team style.
OBSERVATION NUMBER ONE: One Third does not equal 90%
The report's own numbers disprove the 90% allegation.
"There were also checks 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.”*
We found most of these to be electric, not electronic waste. White goods being reused, illegal due to Ghana appliance refund-takeback program - which targeted WORKING fridges (because they were older and used more of Ghana's scarce electricity). In any case this "discovery" is legally an allegation at this point. And most importantly, how the heck do they explain the "90%" illegal headline if 2/3 of the cases against suspect containers are dismissed??? Finally, if you "discovered" some in 1/3 of the containers, how much of those containers was allegedly illegal? If 50% of "almost one third"... we have verification of the Ghana E-Waste Assessment Study (15%), don't we?
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| One third contained "illegal" imported EEE. Not WEEE (unless W stands for "Working") |
Our interviews with custom officials in Tema indicate that seizure of working but eligible-for-rebate refrigerators were the only items declared illegal at the Tema port courtyard.
OBSERVATION NUMBER TWO: Prima Facia Evidence of Legal Incompetence.
The report's claimed 'cause' of illegal transport is disagreement over illegality.
“Identifying and classifying electronic and electrical equipment as waste may be challenging. One could argue that used or discarded equipment could still be of value to others and therefore should not be considered waste. However, the life span of second-hand goods is very short, and within a couple of years it becomes discarded waste. "
Nuff said. They are frustrated that it's legal. See #1 above. Also, brand new devices fail the same test (more often, according to African technicians). Is this what "Project Eden" means, reversing Africa's teledensity? And on what is the objective evidence of "a couple of years"? BAN claimed they were discarded "within days". BAN made up the 80% figure. What does UNEP ("90%", "couple of years") have in common with BAN? Fundraising is easier when numbers are more salacious.
OBSERVATION NUMBER THREE: Theory of "Drivers" is Disproven by Evidence
The report's theory of causes of trade is disproved by the report.
“The main drivers of the trade in hazardous waste appear to be the high costs of proper treatment and the opportunities for illegal actors to operate in a market with relatively low risks and high financial benefit. In addition, low shipping costs and demand for certain types of used goods and constituents in some countries can be a driver for the illegal export of waste to developing countries (Bisschop 2012)."
Ahh. Appear to be... to you? But the 5 countries shown on the chart have the highest shipping costs on the planet. The low shipping cost (cited) was for China. USA-Ghana is about $7,000 or $14 per CRT. And the scrap value for the CRT is only $2, so the "demand for certain types of used goods" (and not others) is explained only by reuse. "Appear to be" is in the eye of the group seeking funding for more studies... it appears to ME to be racial profiling.
OBSERVATION NUMBER FOUR: Evidence of Value is NOT Evidence of Waste.
Payment for goods shown in report is not evidence of "waste" or "illegality".
"The owner/producer of the waste can pay a waste broker to take the waste off his hands for further recycling. Waste brokers maximize their profit through getting paid first by the player disposing of the waste and second by the player who buys it as a reusable commodity. "
First, no one pays the "waste brokers" who ship to Africa (if they do, it probably really IS waste, like Trafigura, and UNEP should focus and enforce there!). Second, if it only works because it's a "reusable commodity"... See #1, and subtitle. Frustrating that you cannot enforce against the "wastecrime" because of that stubborn "reuse innocence" thing.
OBSERVATION NUMBER FIVE: Only Conviction Doesn't Fit Theory
Conviction example (Benson) undermines case, demonstrates Observations 1-4
"Investigators found the defendant had been collecting e-waste from a number of council-run sites in the London area and taking it to his licensed waste premises. Instead of processing the e-waste properly, he sold and loaded four containers of items – including cathode ray TVs and fridge freezers with ozone depleting substances– to brokers and shipping firms who then exported the waste to West Africa. He loaded items at the front of the containers that appeared to have been tested properly for functionality and even put “testing labels” on them."
We have 100+ pages of documented evidence in the case, none shows freon appliances in Benson's containers and he denies being in that business and there are none in the photos. His company license was a REUSE license, not a "waste processing license". But that's all secondary evidence, the point here is that it doesn't fit any of the theories presented in this UNEP report. Shipping costs were high, cost for Benson to return items (which he documented doing, after failed testing) was $0 at the council-run sites. And repair is legal, a "cut cord" (cited as evidence of not being tested) is a simple repair, a most obvious "for repair" case under Annex IX Basel Convention. Benson would lose money on the bad ones, which he could recycle in the UK for free.
OBSERVATION NUMBER SIX: No habeus corpus.
See math. If Ghana is at top of 5 country list, and Agbogbloshie is the largest site in Ghana, hand carts and tire fires cannot possibly manage millions or hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands - or even 1% - of tons claimed in the report.
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| Larger diagram below |
Number Five is Fair Trade Recycling's "Hurricane Benson". Their star example, Joe Benson of BJ Electronics, as being the kingpin, the example of the bad dealer, and proudly trumpets his 16 month prison sentence...
But all the math in their own report indicates there is no Benson material dumped at Agbogbloshie. Tying black Benson, a TV repairman, to black Rachid, Awal, and Razak (my new chums in Agbogbloshie) is racial profiling - you may as well tie him to Kofi Anan or Nelson Mandela or Hurricane Carter or Joe Johnson (the boxer).
Joe Benson may not be perfect, I've met him only after his indictment, and have never traded with him. But I have seen the "evidence" against him, and it's based on the same bad math as riddles this UNEP Report, making Joe Benson the most important example of legal abuse.
- Only reuse explains African incentives.
- Only reuse explains African growth in teledensity.
- Only reuse explains the $19B dollars cited.
- Only reuse explains the costs paid to load, ship, and unload the electronics.
The authors of these reports have jobs to "solve" #ewaste, and the conclusions between the lines of their reports are that they need more resources, to arrest more #freejoebensons. This is #whitesaviorcomplex at best, and #parasitesofthepoor or #charityindustrialcomplex at its worst.
So we meet, head to head. Sixteen paid UNEP experts, armed with professional photography, vs. one lonely blogger.
ENVIRONMENTAL MALPRACTICE AND FALSE PROSECUTION.
INJUSTICE AND RACISM AND PROTECTIONISM OF EU SHREDDING INTERESTS.
THIS IS A SCANDAL. THIS IS #EWASTEGATE.
Academic peer review is occurring (Josh Goldstein and Josh Lepawsky are separately reviewing the UNEP Report), reporters like Adam Minter are taking the time to examine the case, Africans like Wahab Odoi Muhammed and Emmanuel Nyaletey are coming forward, and other photojournalists, less driven by "poverty porn" (like Heather Agyepong) are finding out about the Ewaste Hoax on their own.
Below is the rough analysis of the UNEP Report cut from my own Agbobloshie Report, which has larger paragraphs for better context of the quotes above (I have footnotes as well). But it's almost 9 AM and I have a recycling factory to run... a plant which manually disassembles most of the electronics, because no one would want them or would want to pay to ship them to Africa. Everyone in our business knows that. Everyone in EScrap knows this is a hoax, that there are no Africans buying thousands of containers of packed junk.
Africa's best and brightest, the Tech Sector which brought
double-digit and triple-digit teledensity growth to the "dark continent", year upon year. The Tinkerer's Blessing is the opposite of the curse of natural resources.
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
