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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."

15 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Meh by sznupi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Market will sort it out.

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    One that hath name thou can not otter
    1. Re:Meh by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Shhh. Those are just a commie conspiracy to discredit the Free Market. Any failure by the real world to precisely replicate the predictions of an Econ 101 student with a B or better average is caused by government meddling and could be solved by cutting taxes.

    2. Re:Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Out of sight, out of mind.

      Why do you think we used to have insane asylums, orphanages and poor houses?

      I miss the good old days.

    3. Re:Meh by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 2, Funny

      and could be solved by cutting taxes

      Could be? That's Socialist propaganda! It will be solved by cutting taxes!

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      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    4. Re:Meh by kimvette · · Score: 2, Funny

      . Well all you do is write your name on the paper when you drop them off

      What I do is write YOUR name on the paper when I drop them off - and you're right they don't check at the time. You should be receiving the fines in the mail long after the fact.

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      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    5. Re:Meh by djconrad · · Score: 2, Funny

      But we if could reverse the nacelle polarity, we might be able to couple the externality to the asymmerty with a tachyon burst! That might collapse the price distortion! Not that I disagree with you, but it does look like technobabble.

  2. Re:60 Minutes did this story in 2008 - pointer by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Was he also shocked! shocked! that gambling was occuring in his establishment?

  3. Fake PCs? by DWMorse · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who recycles fake PCs? I've seen them at Ikea and other furniture stores, I suppose most of them ARE cardboard...

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    There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
  4. Re:Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...or call the African government with his complaint.

    I'm sure the President of Africa will be very interested to hear this complaint.

  5. Re:Money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I hate the term NIMBY. It's too cheerful and bouncy a word. There's no need to make up cheerful, bouncy acronyms when perfectly cromulent, albeit bile-filled phrases, exist, e.g. muddle-minded moron, incontrovertibly ignorant idiot, hypocrytical stain.

    It's people like this, the telephone-sanitisers of this world, who will be the downfall of humanity. Oh yes, we want to decrease our reliance on oil. Nuclear power plant? No! There could be another Chernobyl/Three Mile Island/Sellafield. Wind turbines? No! They would ruin our view and a bird might fly into it, one of the rare ones even! It's the sort of behaviour that makes me side with George Carlin; the only thing people are really concerned about is protecting their environment, so they have a nice place to live. Ugly small-minded little people who reject and oppose change at the cost of progress. NIMBY. HAH! It should be: People Under-Schooled Stall Change And Growth or PUSSCAG

  6. ...and of course by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 4, Funny
    Lawrence Summers, back when he was chief economist for the World Bank, wrote and infamous memo where he said he'd "always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City" (verbatim).

    As his comments about gender and intelligence as President of Harvard demonstrate, the guy has a talent for sticking his foot in his mouth.

  7. Re:Anonymous Coward by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Funny

    He emailed me quite recently, so I know for a fact he a is pretty approachable and down to earth fellow. His English is not very good though.

  8. Re:Just like what happened in the USA by gary_7vn · · Score: 2, Funny

    So Africa is going to start shipping its waste to Detroit? Sounds fair!

  9. Re:Alternatives? by zippthorne · · Score: 2, Funny

    Find a spot relatively far from sources of groundwater that people need and put it all in a pile there. Maybe cover it with some dirt to deal with the jaggies and keep it from oxidizing quickly.

    I'm sure that there's a name for this.

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    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  10. Re:Alternatives? by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just imagine the fun and games when plastic eating bacteria escapes containment and multiplies

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    The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.