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Inside the Fake PC Recycling Market
snydeq writes "OSNews' Howard Fosdick reports on the fake recycling market — one in which companies exploit cheap shipping, inexpensive labor, and a lack of safety and environmental law to export computers and other e-waste to China and Africa where it is 'recycled' with a complete lack of environmental and safety rules. 'This trade has become a thriving business. Companies called "fake recyclers" approach well-meaning organizations — charities, churches, and community organizations — and offer to hold a Recycling Day. The charity provides publicity, legitimacy, and a parking lot for the event. On the designated day, well-meaning residents drop off their old electronics for recycling. The fake recycler picks it up in their trucks, hauls it away for shipping, and makes money by exporting it to Chinese or African "recycling" centers. Nobody's the wiser,' Fosdick writes. Of course, the international community has, in fact, devised a set of rules to control e-waste disposal under the Basel Conventions, but the US — 'the international 'bad boy' of computer recycling — is one of four countries that have not ratified and do not adhere to these international agreements."
Market will sort it out.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Of course here in my home province, they recently added a ECE tax which is supposed to before recycling home electronics and such. Which means that the money goes right into the coffers. Of course I can never find anywhere to drop off my electronics, except at the same places which already did it.
Om, nomnomnom...
Pointer to an old 60 Minutes story on just this. The U.S. recycler in question was shocked that his dumpster-full of CRTs ended up in China.
that socialist treaty! If the free market has decide to let black and brown children wallow in our toxic waste for pennies a day, who are we to argue? All hail the invisible hand!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I held a computer and electronics recycling day in my town. We were able to collect over 50 used computers and many other things. Several of them were refurbished and given to people who could use them, but the majority had to be recycled. We didn't ship them to China or Africa either. I'm sure that there will always be people out there trying to game the system to make a quick buck, but there are a lot of people who are just trying to help out (by reducing "ewaste" in my case).
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I am for this product and/or service.
A lot of you won't want to hear this, but most likely the foreign labor that's scavenging these parts is doing so because this is their best option. If you fight against allowing these people access to these discarded resources you might be hurting them economically. Not every country is as wealthy as ours and certainly most of the developing world would be very willing to take increased risks in order to obtain increased prosperity.
Unfortunately, many first world western "do gooders" will destroy the opportunity for 3rd world people to make a living and lift themselves out of poverty.
Sure, these people might have no protection against toxins...but the alternative choice might be starvation or prostitution or even more horrible jobs like stone crushing. (yes, that is a job)
Every nation with modern wealth had to undergo a dirty period of industrialization where some generations lifted themselves out of poverty at health costs...but this is better than being in poverty with other ongoing health costs of POVERTY.
Let people scavenge for resources if that's their best option. They'll make wealth and choose a better life for their kids. Note that when 3rd worlders start making more than 10K USD per person in Per-Capita income they start DEMANDING cleaner environments and standards.
But they have to start somewhere.
I was talking with one of my friends who works in the oil business. He was going off how the cleaner energy technologies will never really take off while oil is 3-5 times less expensive. And sadly, I have to agree: efforts are, of course, being made but considering the amount of money that could be put towards green energy (or nuclear fission or fusion), it's very half-hearted. Cheaper is better in our society. And that applies to NIMBY projects too. It took about 20 years for people to really come around to attempting to recycle anything on a regular basis. It surprises me not in the least that people are tossing environmental concerns for cash.
I hope, someday, that we will learn that protecting our natural resources are part of the cost of doing business. Right now we're like a bunch of teenagers wondering how trigonometry is ever going to be useful in our lives. So we're being taught, but we're not really taking it in.
I'm being serious. With the exception of the (large amounts) easy to recycle copper and aluminum, just dump all the useless crap into an active volcano. At 1300-2400F (700 to 1300C) in temp, it will go back to where it came from - The Earth.
Any donated clothes will likely end up in the hands or African 'entrepreneurs' and sold for profit.
So how does one make a profit in this model. I understand that the likea of HP and Dell and Apple might use these fake recycling services as all they need to get material out of the country and have it end up in someone else's landfill. There is no expectation of profit, just minimization of the cost needed to generate good will. But to make a profit?
I pay for a truck. I pay someone or personally recruit legitimate firms to provide cover. I or one of my agents are at the collection site. Packing costs money. Shipping costs money. Unpacking and disposal costs money. These are a lot of expenses, and I don't see any receivables, unless the parties receiving the product are actually paying for the computers, in which case we can also assume that some level of recycling is going on.
The question is if enough of the computer is recycled to justify the effort and resources consumed, presumably mostly fuel. I would say the best way to deal with this question is not to pass regulation that adress symptoms, but rather to pass regulations so that resources are not undervalued.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'm loving that author's name.
It's almost as good as Dixie Normus.
Given the fine article here, I see that China is one of the bad boys in actually doing bad stuff, yet the http://www.ban.org/country_status/report_card.html web site has China listed as "Excellent". So something seems more than slightly fishy. Reading again, the site merely rates how the countries in question perform lip service to a set of 4 treaties and totally disregards how the countries actually act regards limiting pollution.
Sorry people, but this is a prime example of actions speaking louder than words.
You can get anything you want at Natalie's Restaurant. (The punchline, half a decade later, is that the 21" CRT I salvaged from a dumpster still works, yet I've gone through one LCD monitor due to a failed inverter and a lack of easily-available spare parts since then.)
The only thing I've noticed in the five years since I wrote that parody is that it's getting increasingly hard to find surplus equipment these days. Product lifecycles are shorter, so consumption isn't reduced. It's sure as hell not getting reused. And it's only getting "recycled" in the sense that it's being dumped into the homes of people so poor that they melt solder off printed circuit boards over an open pit fire.
Recycling hardware for which you have no further use is a good idea, but if you're going to recycle your old electronics, do some research and find an organization that's doing it right. ACCRC turns the scrappy scrap into scrap, turns the interesting scrap into art, and the non-scrap into computers that go directly to people in its own neighborhood.
Did the author of this article, just blame the US, for the fact that China and Africa allow their citizens to poison the environment and dump hazardous chemicals into the water ? He should stop buying computer equipment, or call the African government with his complaint.
Who recycles fake PCs? I've seen them at Ikea and other furniture stores, I suppose most of them ARE cardboard...
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
We got rich enough from our industrial past to afford to care enough about clean air and water to start dumping it somewhere else. The same will happen in China and Africa.
(opinion) Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The least of which is Recycle.
People get fooled into thinking they can buy more and reuse less because they practice "feel good" recycling. Recycling at an energy/material loss (such as with paper), is more harmful than simply dumping or incinerating it, partly because of the actual net loss, but also partly because of the smug mindset people enter into. Compare hybrid owners who drive more because they own a hybrid.
Without "feel good" recycling, people might be more inclined to think about purchases (which comparable food comes in the less reusable less wasteful container), and manufacturers might be more inclined to adjust the market accordingly.
~sigh~
" Companies called "fake recyclers" ... "
Wow, that's what you call them? Wow.
This isn't the free market working, this is what happens when you create regulations to try to tax people in order to recycle. The vast majority of people really don't care where it goes, so long as they get their money back. Rather than keeping it around and selling it at garage sales, they can make more money getting their money back at a "recycling" center, so when people are so eager to "recycle" to get their money back, it ends up in the hands of the corrupt because the average person doesn't care.
Taxes and regulations don't make people care, it makes people want to game the system. This is a fine example of the government fucking with the free market where the electronics would probably just be traded via garage sales and thrift stores for a few decades until technology improves to easily recycle them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Reduction in consumption creates no trash and no need to expend energy to refresh/recycle
Reuse eliminates the energy required to collect, sort, reform, and resell
Recycling is only a step better than trash, since the cost of creating the raw materials is not borne, but is offset somewhat by the need for all the reprocessing. It still uses a lot of energy. The biggest advantage is that the materials don't have to be mined.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
http://ban.org/photogallery/index.html
Look at the human tragedy. Thank God today you don't live like that.
And it's no one's fault over here, no unsigned treaty, that could create that kind of depravity. Please just for once put down your politics and look a problem square in the eye: China's just got a bad culture and a worse form of government. It's shameful to allow people to live so rotten, period.
NO, before you get all guilt-ridden and try to heap the blame on "us": shameful, rotten, PERIOD, end of story! Good day, sir.
Windows will continue to bloat up and so will Apple's OSes. Why doesn't the Linux community make a nice slim and secure distribution that will run on a 486/586 with only 256M of memory - or less?
I've been thinking about a non-profit for recycling these machines. Many many poor people could use them.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Oh look, another xenophobic tosser.
I have been seeing stories like these for several years. Although this situation is clearly undesirable, I have still to see anyone proposing a realistic alternative. The bottom line is doing proper recycling costs money, people do not want to pay.
To take something apart and separate the elements used in its construction may cost more than putting it together. Who wants to pay twice the price for anything?
The market pressure is all against any environmentally and safe recycling. The biggest part of most electronic equipment is plastic with very low value as scrap. Fiberglass, for instance, is nearly worthless, what could anyone possibly do with the fiberglass from an old circuit board? This fiberglass is mixed with small but significant amounts of lead, how would you remove the lead before sending the fiberglass to a landfill?
The market isn't working? OK, but would the government work either? Try telling people that their $50 phone will have a $100 tax added for properly recycling it.
Lets just form a congressional sub-committee to look at the problem to eventually raise taxes, legislate new regulations.
We can have Obama put one of his cronies in as "eWaste Czar", and make some sort of teleprompter speech about how he's personally saving the world.
I'd say put the EPA in charge, but I'm sure some other agencies will get its panties in a wad and want to get a piece of the action.
Because that is the real solution isn't it?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
As his comments about gender and intelligence as President of Harvard demonstrate, the guy has a talent for sticking his foot in his mouth.
Are you adequate?
iWaste. A new brand of recycled Apple computers made in China.
I would imagine that most of the people who brought the parts for recycling didn't even wipe the drives they were using. Being a charity it sounds pretty benevolent. I would imagine old hard drives collected in this manner would be pretty valuable...
Nonprofit Technology Resources in Philly does something similar, without the art. A very worthy organization, and one that I am constantly surprised local geeks haven't heard about.
they start DEMANDING cleaner environments and standards
Here's the tricky part: both the environmental and workplace conditions in the photographs of the Chinese sitesare all already against the law in China because Chinese people have demanded that this kind of thing not be allowed. What is not pictured is the recycling center owners in their Benzes and the local party bosses in their Audis (bought with bribes from the owners). Enforcing the demands for better conditions will require not different market choices or even new elections but a complete political revolution. The situation is too far out of control for normal market forces to correct when the government utterly fails to enforce laws or contracts.
all love a bad-boy.
I don't think PC recycling can be done.
It takes more work to disassemble a PC than it did to assemble it from those parts in the first place. When you're done, there isn't much of a market for old 128MB RAM chips, 30GB hard drives, 500 MHz motherboards, etc.
Is there a viable technology that shreds computers with giant steel rollers and sorts the flakes according to material, and sells aluminum flakes, etc. and sells them? Is there a safe heat process? There must be something, since there are companies that claim to provide certified recycling to meet government regulations. But I can't find one. All I can find is stories of third-world dumping.
It may be safer and better for the environment to dump old PCs in U.S. landfills than to send them to parts unknown for "recycling." We should be able to make landfills that can take appliances with heavy metals and electronic plastics without passing it on to the water supply.
Looked to me like a lot of recycling was going on in the photos. Burning "e-waste" isn't recycling, but the other three pictures showed people in the act of recycling electronic waste. So what makes recycling, "fake" recycling? At a glance, it is recycling in a developing world country where environment laws of developed world countries don't exist or aren't followed, if they do exist.
Not to out geek anyone but wasn't this the plot of the "premier" Futurerama on Comedy central last week?
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Everyone should know about paper recycling - it costs more to use recycled paper than new. The quality is questionable as well. The result is that most paper is dumped into an incinerator or a landfill by recycling centers because it is pointless to attempt to recycle post-consumer paper.
Plastic bottles can be recycled... except if one tiny little bottle cap or ring gets into the mix the entire batch is worthless. Since this happens most of the time again plastic bottles are not generally recycled.
Aluminium is one great success in that it is actually cheaper to smelt down aluminium cans than it is to process the raw ore. So a lot of aluminium is actually recycled and it makes economic sense.
Really, if we wanted to build the cost of recycling computers and other high-tech devices into the product cost you would quickly see a drop in new product consumption. $500 for the computer with a $500 add-on for recycling it. $600 for an iPad with $500 for recycling it. $25,000 for a car with $10,000 for recycling it. It would be one way to deal with the recycling problem and it would immediately end most of the need to actually recycle things because the sales would be so reduced as to not require much recycling at all. It would be a way of actually implementing "reduce".
Without that, there is going to be little incentive to either meaningfully reduce consumer buying or force consumers to recycle obsolete or non-functional items. I'd say a minimum charge of $500 for any high-tech device would be reasonable, assuming the devices are being disassembled and processed using Western wage level workers. Now the $10 for the plastic water bottle (each) might also have an effect on both sales of such single-use bottles and the number entering landfills.
The summary says the US is "one of four countries that have not ratified" but the link just lists four notable countries. Scroll down a bit and you will see that they list 15 countries haven't ratified any of the "International Toxics Agreements" (only 15 have ratified all). But is it worse than that since they only list 163 countries when there are 195(*) countries in the world. Assuming the countries they don't list haven't ratified on then that means there are a total of 47 countries that haven't ratified.
Technically the US is "one of four countries that haven't ratified", but technically it is also one of five countries that haven't ratified, and one of three, one of 12, one of 18 and one of 47 countries that haven't ratified.
(*) The UN has 192 member countries but excludes Vatican City, Kosovo and Taiwan.
Correct me if I am wrong... Our used circuits are probably one of the richest sources of gold ore around... Why are we not processing them as such?
I got a lot of old computer parts from the 1990's. Motherfracking Recycling companies near me are a darnned joke and refuse to take tech made before 2002. Then calls me picky and unreasonable when I ask them to take my 90's tech.
Then some want $50 to haul off a $15 CRT tube monitor that do.
Any ideas or suggestions? I don't want to throw them in a dumpster and have mercury leaks and all that, I don't want to harm the environment. I don't want to pay $50 a monitor to get rid of them either.
Are those types of businesses scams and frauds as well? How can I find one to take them for free. The Freecycle group in my area is a joke BTW, get a lot of no shows and then nothing happens and nobody cares.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
As recently as 3-5 years ago you could go to a hamfest get a reasonably up-to-date laptop computer and save $500-700 from a new computer.
Now with new laptop with good specs going for $400-500, the margins are gone, so the hamfest guys are selling laptop computers for $300$400. There's no sense in buying used in that case since it has no warranty and will probably be less energy efficient than a new one.
The issue really is that we're getting so efficient at building new computers that it makes the old stuff worthless pretty quickly.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
.. in mining, pound for pound.
"Compare hybrid owners who drive more because they own a hybrid"
Or the hybrid owners who trade a perfectly good car, go $20,000 into debt because the hybrid gets better gas mileage (probably save them *at most* $500/year).
I wish people would realize the most environmentally friendly car is one that you already own. There's no pollution involved in making the new car, you're not disposing of the old car, and you won't have car payments. What's not to like?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
How often do we read of really sensitive information left on hard drives of surplus or second-hand computers?
Perhaps a smart intelligence agency might be slowly slurping through these recycled drives for something juicy.
So why is it such a bad problem for countries that make this stuff to get it back when we (Western countries, not just the US) no longer need/want it? I'm singling out China but not Africa here...
Let's be fair... I don't want anyone, especially children, being exposed to chemicals involved in e-waste. But I'm of the mindset that if you want to take our jobs away and make a product cheaper than we (Western countries) can make it, then why shouldn't you (China) get it back when we don't want it or it's no longer useful? This treaty basically states that countries that manufacture items get the benefit and profit of manufacture, while incurring little-to-none of the costs of disposal. US landfills have had to deal with e-waste since the early days of radio and TV--most of which were manufactured here...
To add, I have little sympathy for countries that can't or won't control what they import. Each country is responsible for what comes across its borders. It's not like someone's hiding 2 CRT monitors in the trunk of a car & driving them into China--we're talking about huge shipping containers full of these items. If Chinese officials are too corrupt, unwilling, or inept to stop the flow of e-waste, then they get what they deserve...
[End of rant...]
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
If you want a good glimps into the whole recycling of electronics in 3rd world countries check out the movie Manufactured Landscapes. Some pretty incredible shit...
of the Antares System.
There's more cash in other people's wallets than there is in mine, dollar-for-dollar.
However, spending my own cash is easier (it's in my wallet, rather than other people's wallets), it's more familiar (I've been doing it this way for years, whereas I've never spent other people's cash), and there are less negative externalities associated with it (spending other people's cash is illegal and immoral if I don't have their permission, and it's technically my cash anyways if I do have their permission).
More cash dollar-for-dollar doesn't necessarily mean that spending other people's cash is a better idea than spending my own. It could be, but there is more to consider than dollar-for-dollar.
To relate this to the point it sounds like you're implying, more value pound-for-pound does not necessarily mean that recycling electronics is more viable than mining. It could be, but there is more to consider than pound-for-pound.
Of course, it's possible that you aren't implying that at all.
I just throw my shit in the dumpster. Full-on towers, motherboard, power supply and all. Fuck it.
Here in 'merica, we don a cottin to nun a them feriners a tellin us in what ta do. We jes a goes about an duz awr recyclin tha way Gawd intenned, an doncha be a tellin us in a wat ta dew. Itz awr rite ta pack ar gunz and a send awr big-ole TeeVees an whatnot ta chinie if a weez a want, an doncha be a tellin us wat weez a doin is no good, or weez a gonna pull out whatcha we-all iza pakin, and prit-neer all a use feriners wil soon a find out about wat we-all is a pakin. Now you-all jus go on an git an don be tellin us what good an wha not. Now you all go on an git! Git i tellz ya!
Market is what creates this. I was from upstate NY, smaller recyclers went out of business due to large one that takes in all donations/recycles, strips parts to sell on ebay, then dumps the rest out of country. They made money off sales, pay next to nothing to dump. This killed off legit recyclers.
So, a girl who can earn a months wage in a factory in just three nights on her back is far worse then the Bhopal disaster?
This is not insightful at all. It is a terrible justification for keeping people in terrible conditions and it's wrong, people want to believe it because it makes them feel better.
You're rant against "do gooders" ignores all the people who work to establish sustainable farming and industry with safety that meets most western standards. That means workers aren't standing around in toxins, have helmets and gloves as well as several other simple safety measures like training (e.g. spot the hazard). It helps you to belittle people actually trying to make lives better as that means you aren't being as selfish as you really are. It may come as a surprise to you but most people involved in "doing good" in poorer nations actually want to help develop sustainable communities, these are people like non-religious private aid agencies and the UN amongst others. I used to work for a company that formed a non-profit charity organisation after the tsunami in Asia, for the most part all this organisation does is zero interest loans and business advice (supporting the people who take the loans).
You really have no clue about the third or developing world. The problem isn't when the average wage out of 100 people is 10K, I can show you that in Thailand and 80 of the 100 people will be subsistence farmers. The problem the developing world has is that the distribution wealth is so terribly lopsided, a few people make billions whilst most of the population makes little.
Do you honestly think that factories in China, Vietnam and Thailand operate without the consent of the local politicians or business leaders? No, of course not they're involved and getting their cut.
I'm sorry to interrupt your free market drivel, but ignoring the problem will not make it go away, it took 20 years just for the Indian people to get to declare Union Carbide exec's guilty, they were fined US$2000 and let go, not a single exec ended up in jail, not a single western exec was even charged.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
In the US, the Free Market (TM) will provide all the air and water we need.
I just want to thank the folks at Slashdot for posting e-waste stories like this. I've got 45 bookmarks on e-waste http://delicious.com/joerowe/e-waste I'm looking for other teachers to develop lesson plans for e-waste education. For example: National Geographic published a good story, but it contained some major myths. I've contacted NG and they refused to admit it's only a myth that computer screens from Monitex in Texas are turned into in low cost TV sets in Thailand. See the 5th picture in this set. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/essick-photography BTW: This story was well documented by the TV show 60 minutes, which you can watch online. See my bookmarks.
http://reconnectpartnership.com/
Free recycling, backed by some larger companies as a reliable place that does it right.
Maybe Obama should set up a policy to adhere to these laws to ensure the safety and exchange of the goods with with these countries.
I understand a computer that is broken due to a cd-rom that does not work is totally differnt then sending a 486 that has no ram no hard drive and a cracked motherboard.
If they were to actually "recycle" the material locally, the electronics industry which is seeing raw material shortages can actually reuse existing material. The question is how to re-extract those raw materials.
Many black-market 'recyling' out-fits ship their stuff to China. China is one of the worst offenders for re-selling and re-using recycled equipment. Towns in rural China are plagued with toxic chemicals seeping into their ground water. What's worse is the local governments, which are far from national oversight or are benefactors of nation indifference, abuse their power to take a cut of the profits and forbid foreign correspondents from filming the whole mess.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/10/video-chinas-toxic-wastelands-of-consumer-electronics-revealed/
It is best to ratify a treaty only once you are prepared to enforce that treaty's obligations, rather than ratify and flagrantly ignore a treaty, otherwise the concept of having a treaty is worth nothing.
--"You are your own God"--
Where do you live!? Around here (Lower Michigan, USA) we take vehicles to the metal recyclers/auto salvage yards and THEY PAY US! People even go door to door asking if people have an old vehicle/anything else metal they want gone, a derelict car wouldn't last too long during one of the spikes in metal prices. Old Cars can usually get $150 - $250, Old farm semis around $800.
"Wreck Deposits", I've never heard of such a useless thing. I hope no bureaucratic weasel ever tries to pull that stuff around here. I'll admit that reasonable can/bottle deposits are a good idea, but I don't like how they're applied in such an absolute way. I like to use some cans/2 liters for secondary purposes, nut/bolt, screw, parts, etc containers. Its more efficient/cost effective than recycling & buying a new container but of course I still cant get back that $0.10 "deposit", and it does add up over time.
To elaborate on what an AC already posted, Best Buy has an electronics recycling program in the US which will take all manner of products, regardless of where they were purchased. Use the drop-down menu on the right to see the rules for your particular state.
Generally they insist that hard drives be removed from computers -- apparently they don't want the responsibility of dealing with sensitive data. They also charge $10 to take CRTs, but they give you a $10 gift card in return. Say what you will about Best Buy's other practices; this is a very useful program.
Their standards statement indicates they don't do anything dastardly with the stuff once they collect it. I'd be interested to know if anyone has direct experience with how they deal with it all.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
I guess you need more independent recycling consultants (homeless people) where you live. I would have thought New York would have had an adequate supply.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'd like to point out that in one of the links that show which countries have an "excellent" rating in computer recycling and those that have a 'failing' rating. Why is China ranked as "excellent" in following the international rules when it is in China where the majority of illegal waste processing plants exist? Whereas the US has nothing BUT EPA standard (better than International standards) electronic recycling facilities and it is not ranked as "excellent"? That is typical anti-american bias because they are jealous that we are just better and do not need to adhere to sub-par international standards that can never be fully enforced not even close to 1% enforcement.
Just for the record, CRTs don't contain the element "phosphorus", as the osnews article claims in its list of toxins. They contain "phosphors", a catch-all name for a wide variety of chemical compounds that emit light when excited by electron beams or various types of radiation. Phosphors do typically contain small amounts of heavy metals, so they are still a health concern, but considerably less so than some forms of the element phosphorus, which can be deadly in short order.
I agree with your sarcasm -- it's amazing how much people "believe" in a free market so much that they assume it is the best system even in economic sectors where it was never proven or even theorized to work. A rational perspective is so often trumped by irrational bindings to the concept of good and evil. It's like saying "look and see how well Newtonian gravity explains the way cars roll downhill and planets orbit the sun! Newtonian gravity is good and just, and all heretical theories like those of that anarchist, Einstein, are evil!"
On the flip side, I stumbled across this page while trying to get a good overview of the toxic waste export issues:
http://ban.org/Library/ierarticle.html
I was appalled by how much propaganda there is in this report. Every headline and sentence is loaded with manipulative wording. It's really comical! While I'm inclined to agree with the message on the whole, which justifies the Basel ban, every instinct tells me not to trust these wordsmiths. There's no actual evidence presented (that I could find) to support the Basel ban. I'm not saying that the Basel ban was a bad idea or that the US should not now support it, but my search to find a rational argument backed up by evidence is unsuccessful so far.
It seemed like an interesting extension of the conversation. Specifically:
I'm not sure I agree with the later parts of the post, but that part seemed insightful. Costs are the consequence that influences people's behavior, whether they're monetary or in other forms. If the cost of dumping trash ($10/month) is less than taking my stuff to be recycled (drive 30 minutes, pay $, and only at particular times of the month), people are likely to toss it in the trash. It kindof makes me glad that part of my trash fee goes to have recyclable things picked out.
Our local Good Will charity ran one of these - they normally refuse ALL computer parts, after some bad publicity when people donated hard drives with sensetive data still on them. They wouldn't even accept peripherals, so all "e-waste" had to be brought in for this special "recycling" event. How widely are these scams going on?
The problem the GLOBALIZED world has is that the distribution wealth is so terribly lopsided, a few people make billions whilst most of the population makes little.
FTFY.
is to never throw anything away and hoard all my old computer components in my basement or under my desk.
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