Slashdot Mirror
Environmental Watchdogs Confused By E-Waste Practices
retroworks writes with a California-centric story that might have parallels in other states, too: "The Sacramento Bee digs further into the controversy over E-Waste exports, and finds that environmental watchdogs doth protest too much. Remember how we were all urged to use a 'Pledge' Signing company to properly recycle our old computers and televisions? Remember how companies which didn't 'Pledge' were accused of exporting toxic poisons by groups like Basel Action Network? The Bee's Tom Knudson discovered that some of the loudest Pledge recycling companies used the exact same exporting brokers as BAN was attacking as 'worst actors.' One California firm exported 6.9 million pounds of raw electronics through the same export market which the environmental 'watchdog' attacked earlier this year... Whether or not the export market was ok to begin with, or continues to be unacceptable, the watchdogs still want to be the experts of who is the best 'e-waste' recycling company. Credibility, RIP."
What's the issue here? China makes cheap crap, we use it and send it back. Let the toxins go back to where they were created.
Short insight from a former insider - the problem is huge, the middle men working to facilitate the process are abundant, the business model is quick, simple, and lucrative. Unfortunately it robs us of our responsibility to the planet as well as an entire necessary industry we should be advancing, that is the safe deconstruction and recycling of modern devices. It's a messy situation. But nothing modern engineering couldn't design around, and I think in the long run we could craft very clean, efficient methods of dealing with a lot of this "waste". Yes, we have some growth in this area, but the problem is that it's still too expensive. Stateside recyclers charge somewhere between $10-80 dollars per cathode ray tube handled, whereas most waste brokers who ship overseas will pay you, something like $20-50 a pallet (of I think 36). The most unfortunate part is that customers here really do have an interest in doing things correctly, they just don't often have a budget for it and shop on promises but also price.
I'm thoroughly humbled by the fact that I have no friggin idea what the summary is saying. Can someone explain this to me in simple terms?
weinersmith
but I am confused by the summary.
AccountKiller
Rising nations sacrifice health and safety standards to decrease costs while increasing profits in doing business with established industrialized countries.
News at 11.
Seems that in general, environmental problems in other countries simply go by "out of sight, out of mind." Solar panel production is another example of this.
Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what these days marketed as environmentally friendly is genuinely good for the environment and what is a marketing ploy by corporations getting on the latest bandwagon. Kudos to watchdog groups like this one that have a hope of exposing groups who are simply going for the bottom line.
Does having a witty signature really indicate normality?
the ITER fusion reactor cant get done soon enough.
more funds towards science could help the world a LOT.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
One of the best places is ACCRC. Usable stuff is refurbished for charity organizations, schools, etc. and the rest is handled responsibly and locally by ECS Refining in Santa Clara. Small fees are charged since this isn't as cheap/profitable as sending it overseas. But in the past they've taken stuff for free on Earth Day (April 22) so I save my small circuit boards and cables till then. The bottom line: do your own research. Especially if a recycler is eager to take anything and everything for free.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
but I am confused by the summary.
It would have been way more useful if they'd defined e-waste. I don't know about you but 90% of my confusion was that the summary used that term which I had never heard before, and once I figured it out the rest all made sense. We use the prefix "e-" in most other contexts to refer to things that exist in electronic form, and in this context people use it to refer to plain old meatspace waste that happens to come from electronics.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Welcome to the new business model in America. We spin it the way you want it, and then by the time you've bought it, it's entirely too late. The only people/persons without accountability are those who have money. Geeee, I wonder who made it that way, maybe those with money...? Just because most are like that doesn't mean all are.
I remember a time in which credibility was a virtue amongst men, or was that just my perception?
Let us tip our glasses at the new era: unscrupulous. Last one out turn the lights off...
E-Waste that gets shipped to China and other places, sometimes ends up handled by facilities without adequate worker protection and polluting the environment. The journo doesn't provide any real information of what percentage of waste ends up handled in this way and how much is handled in a responsible manner. Nor does he make any mention of how Chinese law regards these activities. China is mentioned only as a bogeyman.
Oh, look! Someone right here in the good old USA has found a solution! Yay! The Chinese bogeyman can be defeated! But, wait... there are some fly-by-night operators who don't want to embrace this triumph of American ingenuity. Obviously, those fly-by-night folks are just looking for a quick buck while the larger businesses are really looking out for the environment.
Therefore, we should pass some kind of law to prevent export of e-waste. The large businesses that can afford to vertically integrate (through capital expenditures on the machinery for e-waste processing [NB: Investment in jobs vs machinery is related to cost of labor {Where labor is cheap (China, global south), work is done by workers. Where workers are expensive (USA, EU, etc.), work is done by machines}]) obviously have environmental interests at heart (never commercial interests.)
So, the article offers a problem (hellish conditions in some places receiving electronics exports from the USA), and offers a solution (requiring the processing of waste in the USA). Who will benefit from this? The large, vertically integrated e-waste companies in the USA. Who will lose? 1) All of the small e-waste collectors who will now be forced to sell their raw e-waste to the large domestic operators, and 2) all of the foreign e-waste processing centers.
The end result would be that all e-waste would be processed through a small number very rich e-waste processors. The barrier to entry (through investment in machinery and whatever certification process they create) will be so high and the economies of scale so large that perhaps 3 big companies will be processing all US e-waste if it's export were banned.
How much do you want to bet that some actors in the e-waste marketplace who aspire to be larger processors put something in the ear of the journalist?
eWaste: Dispose your old bits here for recycling. Only you can prevent bitrot.
Ah, so! Ah, so! Me frappy dickie!
I gave up using the "delete" key years ago, because I didn't want my discarded ASCII characters ending up in some landfill, leaching into the groundwater, or worse, drifting in the ocean, endangering the wildlife. So now, when I make a typo, I just "cut" the character(s) with ^X, and move it into a character composting file I keep for that purpose; when I need new characters, rather than create them from scratch, (with all the attendant resource losses) I simply move it from the composting file to whatever document I happen to be working on.
Recycling can make a difference, if you are willing to do your part!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Unlike the "normal" e-waste companies who take hardware and ship it Chindifrica to places where kids melt components off PCBs over an open fire, ACCRC actually does it right.
My God, has it really been 5 Thanksgivings since I wrote my Alice's Restaurant parody in response to a comment on a Slashdot post on "Whose Burden is it to Recycle Computers?" when the CA law came out.
The punchline to the joke is that less than two years after I wrote it, life imitated art. Officer Obie really did have a problem when someone took a big pile of garbage and turned it into something that a school could use, and it was only through the dumb luck of blind justice that the Judge didn't see it that way.
I've never had to pay a dime to ACCRC, but whenever I make a dropoff, I've always tossed a few bucks in as a donation, because I know that anything useful will get used - if not at a school, at least in an art project, and the rest will be disposed of of safely and responsibly.
So we'll sing it again when it comes around on the guitar.
"Reuse any hardware you want from Natalie's Restaurant, .JPGs of Natalie)
(excepting drives with
Reuse any hardware you want from Natalie's Restaurant,
Monitors, just around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
And you can get any grits you want at Natalie's Restaurant."
Do de do, dee de doo de doo...
The problem here is the same faced by any industry. Programs like eStewardship are voluntary programs and not subject to legal enforcement so the field is potentially ripe with opportunity to defraud your customers with higher processing fees for all the added expense of being green. It's largely a marketing tool on both ends and I'm sure there are plenty of people in the industry who see it as nothing but.
However, there are plenty of people who do take this very seriously, and it's unfortunate that our credibility is being tarnished. Sadly there's little that can be done about it, auditing processes will catch companies that merely don't meet the standards, but there's nothing that can be done about those who intentionally falsify records or aim for loopholes.
I can only recommend that those looking to be rid of their hardware do their due diligence, there's no reason a company shouldn't able be to provide a list of their downstream processors by name or offer you a tour of their facilities.
[rant]
This is just more proof that all this "green" propaganda is nothing more than a ruse created to lure well intentioned people into accepting useless and rather expensive means to reduce waste for no other reason than to appease some sort of personal jealousy they have for using the earth's resources in ways that are frowned upon by some of these organizations that have seemingly popped up over night and are invading your towns and regulatory bodies all over the country.
Time and time again we see some "greenies" telling us how we have to live, and then they go off and do the exact opposite.. People like Al Gore and James Cameron come to mind as some of the big hypocrites.
Before I get flamebaited to death, keep in mind I'm referring to the white-collar business mogul types that stand to profit by imposing unnecessary regulations on small businesses and the general populace while escaping these same practices themselves by being crafty with the wording they use when lobbying for these kinds of regulations.
Don't be fooled into believing Al Gore really cares about the trees or the salamander population. These people have, generally - not cared about anything other than themselves. And I don't think "greenies" are particularly evil or sinister people, and I believe they have good will, but I fear they have been co-opted by the ones shrouding themselves in a veil of humanism and a promise of imminent doom unless we follow their lead.
[/rant]
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
How about none of our e-waste leaves the country so we can reclaim as many of the rare earth elements as we can before handing things back to Asia.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Personally I thought the story was about the amount of corruption in businesses who did their best to hide all their dodgy practises.
Granted this isn't a tick for the watchdogs but don't make it out to be about poor business being attacked by greeny loonies.
It's turtles all the way down.
That's because it's inscrutable.
Literally the only reason I'm reading the comments is to see if people are as confused by that seemingly random string of words. I mean I know they form sentences, and I understand it involves something with waste (what the FUCK is e-waste?) and possibly the environment(?) but it's like one of those things you read about in scifi or fantasy books where as you read it it bewitches you into forgetting the last few words you just read.
Remember how we were all urged to use a 'Pledge' Signing company to properly recycle our old computers and televisions?
No?
sic transit gloria mundi
For those in the need to know, the recycling industry, this is since many years a well known acronym for Electronics Waste.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Like recycles electrons?
AccountKiller
..not as I do.
Not following ones own advise does not make the advise any worse. Those things should be judged by their content, not by messengers.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Simply set up a national 'waste' site and allow these companies to bring the parts to there. Then require that any exports of goods that are not being re-used, be subject to approval. Now, some ppl will object to a 'waste' site, but what it really is, is more of a hold area until a prof or a company develops ways to recycle the goods. Keep in mind that while some nasty compounds are in these, there are also plenty of elements that are needed. REE are just some of these.
Not only that, it's sensationalistic to the point of being wrong. Whatever "watchdog" the submitter/editor thought was being confused, wasn't, since they called out the company described in the article for "breaking their pledge" and now that company is "doing the right thing".
I have mod points, but for some reason it won't let me mod the summary as troll.
There have been some bias in articles before, but this one goes off the hook. A scumbag company lies to everyone and scams them, but it's all the environmentalists fault for falling for the same scam everyone else did?
This sentence no verb.
Anyone who reads the stuff their trash pickup company mails to them knows what e-Waste is, but I guess you thought you were smarter than a bunch of garbage assholes and pitched it straight into the bin?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For those in the need to know, the recycling industry, this is since many years a well known acronym for Electronics Waste.
Yes, but Slashdot headlines aren't written for the recycling industry. They're (supposedly) written for the average nerd and if the average nerd doesn't understand a term in the headline it should be defined in the summary.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Anyone who reads the stuff their trash pickup company mails to them knows what e-Waste is, but I guess you thought you were smarter than a bunch of garbage assholes and pitched it straight into the bin?
Wow, way to assume that people who don't know everything you know are stuck-up jerks, rather than simply people who've been presented with different information. You'll go far in life with that attitude.
FYI I don't have a "trash pickup company", but I've read everything the municipal waste department has ever mailed to me, especially about "e-Waste" disposal, and they don't use that term. I've taken several computers and several monitors to be recycled and the folks who take care of that don't use it either, at least not when talking to customers. I've read more than a handful of news articles about the matter, none of which referred to it as "e-Waste", but I guess I'm not as hip as your majesty, who seems to know how everything works everywhere in the world.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
I've read more than a handful of news articles about the matter, none of which referred to it as "e-Waste", but I guess I'm not as hip as your majesty, who seems to know how everything works everywhere in the world.
Pretty much every article I read on electronic trash from the English speaking world refers to it as e-Waste, so if you truly haven't seen the term then you probably shouldn't be posting on the subject, because it's fucking impossible to avoid if you're paying the least bit of attention. Why do people who don't know shit bother to post except to ask questions? "Oh, I've never heard that, so it must be false, it can't possibly be that I have been hiding under a rock. I can't be crazy, it has to be everyone else."
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Pretty much every article I read on electronic trash from the English speaking world refers to it as e-Waste,
Unless the articles you've read include every article ever written on the subject, this isn't really relevant to the articles I've read which were the topic at issue.
so if you truly haven't seen the term then you probably shouldn't be posting on the subject, because it's fucking impossible to avoid if you're paying the least bit of attention.
Or maybe I've been paying attention but the world is bigger than one person's individual experience, and in some places they don't use the same terminology?
"Oh, I've never heard that, so it must be false, it can't possibly be that I have been hiding under a rock. I can't be crazy, it has to be everyone else."
You're the only person in this thread who's using that sort of reasoning. Most importantly, I never said anything was false simply because I hadn't heard it; I said your statements about my city's waste disposal practices were false based on my direct experience to the contrary, which I believe I'm in a better position to speak on than you. On the other matters, my reasoning was of the form, "Oh, I haven't heard that, would you please explain?" Your reasoning was of the form, "I have never heard of discussion of this issue which didn't use this terminology, therefore such discussion doesn't exist." I'm sorry you have a complex which causes you to believe your limited experience automatically describes everything in the entire world, but that's really not my problem. The fact that many other posters expressed confusion about the summary shows that clearly what you regard as universal knowledge isn't as universal as you think it is.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Foreign Correspondent ran a documentary on china's mass production. I'll leave people to draw their own conclusions on the matter.
The youtube (Aussies can see it on the foreign correspondent website as well - it's called "Dirty Secrets") video is here, split into Part 1 and Part 2
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.