Footprints Vs. Fingerprints: Example of Environmental Own Goal (leadfree solder)

 My generation became invested in Recycling before the "Mobro Barge" and garbage crisis (closing of small unlined landfills under RCRA). 

The energy, carbon, environmental harm, habitat depletion, species loss, toxics, everything in mining and petroleum pumping, was the reason to recycle. We made a calculated bargain to put recycling into the waste management business, to benefit from rising landfill costs, but I have argued we lost our way.

Mining and forestry build roads into forests, which expose humanity to #bushmeat trade (illegal poaching). That brings endangered-species-platter to so-called "wet markets", which brings us HIV, AIDS, and Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) through chimp and pangolin and bat hunting.  

FOOTPRINT:  We pierce habitats because we don't recycle enough, and we need the supply of virgin raw materials.

FINGERPRINT: We obsess over our recycling - the costs, the quality, the access - losing site of the fact that recycling has always paid for itself if the cost of mining, forestry, and oil drilling have to pay for themselves as well.

Here's a reminder of our #owngoal, a Midgely-esque policy still championed as environmentally sustainable, which failed to do the math. ROHS, or leadfree solder.

Tin mining in SE Asia was practically extinct by 1980 (a high school friend's dad in Arkansas had lost his job because "bi-metal cans" demanded so little tin by then). We environmentalists re-opened this mining business because we were more obsessed with the quality of our waste than the recycled content and repairability of our electronic devices.

Saving the World Progress Report

Environmentalists are mentally multitasking between preserving scares natural resources for future generations, preserving endangered species, the climate change thing, and postponing World War Three.

In my end-boomer/pre-GenX age group, there's a growing mantra of #we'refucted.

To me, this mentality is realistic. It's like we're in a chess game and we've already lost so many pieces that "resign" is the only move suggested in the playbook.

But who is the real opponent in this chess game? Society? Lobbyists? Corporations? Overpopulation? Ignorance? This blog often focuses on #owngoals, #collateraldamage, #accidentalracism, #bullyboys, and other mistaken moves on our own chess playtable. But who is the actual opponent?

Sheer Bias and Racial Profiling: H.R. 4521 Disgusting Section 30612 is Based on Old Slander

Sheer Bias and Racial Profiling: H.R. 4521 Disgusting Section 30612 is Based on Old Slander

Here is a link to the sad ending of a 13-year old women's recycling collective in Sonora, Mexico.  It was profiled, vetted, and visited by NPR (Living on Earth and Marketplace), by Adam Minter (Bloomberg), and PBS (AZ).

My opinion Op-Ed about Retroworks de Mexico ran in Resource Recycling in late 2020. The "Chicas Bravas" were cheated out of their winning bid for the City of Tucson, accused by Arizona-based recyclers of using "primitive practices" including testimony at the Tucson City Council that they were "burning the CRTs in barrels". Tucson Clean and Beautiful visited Retroworks de Mexico and fought valiantly against the slanderous claims. But they never did get the business from Arizona afterwards. Scared of "exports", Arizona instead trusted its CRTs to a domestic solution... and wound up with tens of thousands of trashed CRT piles in the city of Phoenix (the infamous "Closed Loop" site). The Chicas Bravas in Mexico, by contrast, left the floor broom clean, having recycled every ton of CRTs they managed since opening in 2007.

https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2020/09/24/in-my-opinion-how-bureaucracies-and-bias-sunk-a-crt-solution/

The House version of the America COMPETES Act is mostly full of good ideas, but the anti-"ewaste"-export Section 30612 doesn't simply ban junk going to non-OECD countries. OECD isn't mentioned. In fact, the section brands not only Mexicans, but Canadians and Europeans and Japanese and Koreans - as security threats if allowed to buy a used television or computer monitor, or toaster.

The Racial Profiling is the history of this bill since it was first introduced in 2010. CAER members have blithely portrayed the Tech Sector outside the USA as "primitive", using photos of junk TVs imported to Africa in the 1970s as perverse evidence of current export and use.

Today's blog is about photos and captions of the 13 year history of this anti-export language.

Oxpecker Bird 2 Blog: Appearing this week in E-Scrap News (In My Opinion)

Part 2 of the essay on the RERA-is-SEERA-is-AmericaCompetesAct has been picked up by E-Scrap News, "IN MY OPINION" Op-ed.

Here again is the section 30612 in the House Report version.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-zuxQILKwou7j8qCo62Bg-XBpxFEXLv9/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108266863784829595501&rtpof=true&sd=true

It did not make it to the Senate Version, text here.

\\https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4521/text

Fun fact:  CAER rep quoted in the Pro-30612 section was also, in 2006, selling to the same contract manufacturers I was selling to. I have photos.

This was a factory owned by Rowell Yang of Proview, who was in a much-publicized trademark war with Apple (Mr. Yang, who I met a few times, had trademarked "iPad" in China and Hong Kong).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2012/02/21/apple-disses-proview-ceo-over-ipad-trademark-fight/?sh=6d4f11f95e25

https://www.engadget.com/2012-02-23-shanghai-court-sides-with-apple-ipad-sales-to-continue.html

So when Apple's lobbyist accuses the Chinese contract manufacturer of "counterfeiting", they mean... reuse is bad.

OXPECKER BIRD 1: SEERA Goes Off Like a Forgotten Land Mine in H.R. 4521

My company has long flittered around like a Red Oxpecker Bird, landing on the shoulders of great 

investors in the USA "E-Waste" industry.  We are occasionally recognized, allowed to sing, and hop about conferences looking for parasitic ideas in the ears of our industry. But the worst thing to happen in 20 years may be buried in the text of a major House bill, H.R. 4521. (annotated text link)

(helpful hint, don't open US Congress bill in Chrome, use MS Edge, there's a Chrome bug)

Here is the 2009 Version HR 2791 (don't try in Chrome)  H.R.2791 - 113th Congress (2013-2014): Responsible Electronics Recycling Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Here is the 2016 Version  HR3559 (don't try in Chrome) 

Text - H.R.3559 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Secure E-Waste Export and Recycling Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

And Here is the current Recycled Version, which finally made it out of the House of Representatives.

H.R.4521 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): America COMPETES Act of 2022 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Notice the 2022 bill, which passed the House, is buried inside the language of a much longer bill. This was not able, in 13 years, to survive on its own. This is Jedi Lobbyist, not NGO. No Senate member has heard any testimony This is an unmarked land mine.

Because the USA has strong OEM warranty laws (Magnusson Moss Warranty Act of 1975), OEMs have for years used more copper, stronger materials, and extra testing. Our electronics, internationally speaking, have "bullet-proof" reputaton. USA Home-Used is a stronger brand in Ghana or Cameroon than brand new from China. The USA has no competition in used goods. Our used goods are sought out, "solid state", it's a unique advantage USA consumers have if they want to sell their used goods abroad.

"America Competes Act" should recognize that simply by DEMANDING a #Right To Repair, we are bolstering our competitive position in the secondhand goods market.

This may take a few blogs but for the Swordfish Readers who follow the history and origins of these anti-reuse, anti-repair, anti-DIY, anti-#RightToRepair, Pro-Obsolescence, greedy mess makers behind this bill, some history boxes need to be checked.

The "short answer" to the Senate reconciliation or Conference Committee is why allow this RERA, SEERA, 13 year old land mine to enter the Senate version of the bill without ever a discussion or debate? Why does the self-same restrictive language supported by #ProvenFalse 80% bad export claims, #ProvenFalse bad for USA recyclers claims, suddenly get branded as a "national security" concern? The argument seems to be that if TV parts are allowed to be exported, that they might wind up as a reuse chip embedded in a US soldier's walkie-talkie. This absurdity is why the language of the bill, which has barely changed even as it's justifications could fail a high school creative writing class, is suddenly buried 13 years later, like a forgotten land mine.

It's the Anti-Reuse-Terminator 13. I'm 60 years old now, and it keeps reaching out and grabbing me like an unfriendly anti-Iron-Giant (classic animated movie about fear used to justify violence, and the potential for self-repair is the silver lining as the destroyed robot's screws, chips and pieces are seen to reassemble the friendly giant at the closing credits).