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It's Not All Waste: The Complicated Life of Surplus Electronics In Africa
retroworks writes "Today's Science Daily reports on 5 new UN studies of used computer and electronics management in Africa. The studies find that about 85% of surplus electronics imports are reused, not discarded. Most of the goods pictured in 'primitive e-waste' articles were domestically generated and have been in use, or reused, for years. Africa's technology lifecycle for displays is 2-3 times the productive use cycle in OECD nations. Still, EU bans the trade of used technology to Africa, Interpol has describes 'most' African computer importers as 'criminals,' and U.S. bill HR2284 would do the same. Can Africa 'leapfrog' to newer and better tech? Or are geeks and fixers the appropriate technology for 83% of the world (non-OECD's population)? "
Africa remains a case study in unintended consequences. Nowhere else is the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" so pitifully demonstrated.
Western liberal arrogance leads us to condescendingly believe we know what's best for Africans. It's the worst racism of all.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
The world's treatment of Africa has been 99% by greed, not good intentions. My friend was in the Peace Corps and realized partway through he was mainly there to pave the way for oil companies. Or the most despicable "resource" extraction of all, the slave trade. Estimates range from 10 to 28 million lives stolen. Good intentions indeed.
The big manufacturers like Dell have been trumping up the 'eWaste' issue for years now. They do it to make sure they yank all the old hardware out of the secondary (used) market where it inteferes with new equipment sales.
My local situation is typical. We don't (yet) have to pay a 'disposal fee' to get rid of the 'untouchable' evil-awful old computer equipment, but the local Goodwill is the place-of-choice to donate them to. And Dell has a 'bounty' deal going with Goodwill, to pull all PeeCees out of the donation stream and never, EVER put them out for resale.
A lot of us got our start playing around with Linux on multiple PCs (networking) using castoff PCs that there are agents now actively making sure are not 'just lying around' for us to fool with. It's quite possible that a lot of that wouldn't happen in today's environment.
Ban the sale of reusable goods to countries fully capable of using them and force them to buy new stuff they cannot afford. This whole planet's gone mad, I tells ya', MAD.
I'm beginning to regret knowing my grandparents. They taught me to fix what could be fixed and only replace what you finally cannot fix. I'm writing this on an old CRT monitor that a friend gave me because the image was getting too dark. I did a little research, found that changing out a single resistor would brighten up the image for another ten years or so and it's still working. Meanwhile, he's using a "new" LCD monitor that's starting to suffer pixel dropouts as it ages. When the power supply fan bearings get noisy, I replace the fan in the power supply. I've even replaced capacitors on motherboards and in power supplies rather than replace the whole unit.
God, I hate using this term but if that isn't being green I don't know what is. In the old days it wasn't called being green. It was called being frugal (or, if you weren't Scottish in background, being cheap. :-)
(I'm in Canada, btw, not Africa.)
Western liberal arrogance
Liberal arrogance?
If there is such a thing a Western arrogance towards Africa it would most likely be from the conservative (stagnant) side of the political spectrum.
Europe has banned the export of any waste to any place, the ban is most certainly not limited to electronics and or Africa.
This ban came into effect after many cases of dumping of dangerous substances with terrible consequences for the receiving countries and people involved.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I've lived, worked and even occasionally traveled there for fun. It seems like everyplace you go, any efforts, by anyone, to move the civilization forward are stymied by a history of internal conflict and corruption. Did European influence help or hurt? Impossible to tell, but it is what it is. In Angola, for example, the nationals decry (and so they should) the terrible oppression of Portuguese - it was a terrible time for them and Portugal should be ashamed of how they treated fellow human beings. But, but, Angolans will also tell you that the day the Portuguese left the infrastructure started to crumble, and hasn't been the same since. The capital city of Luanda looks almost frozen in time (if you don't look too closely at the crumbling brickwork and potholes in the street).
Should the invasion of Africa by Europeans never have happened? Perhaps, but you can't change that now. Saying that external influences are raping the continent is just stupid - the smart countries are taking advantage of their natural resources as they have a right to do. In the case of oil, without exception the national oil company of that country is (actually has to be) a partner in the production, and tax rates are at least 50% on everything that is taken out of the countries. I fail to see how that is disadvantaging anyone.
I am well aware of charities out there who like to package up used computers and sent them off to Africa, the truth is, the computers are old and mostly useless. It's not that people aren't appreciative, but realistically, setting up a refurbished CPU, monitor, keyboard, powersupply, stabilizer, ect... it takes a lot of work. It also takes maintenance and training. It takes a lot of money to do all this. Furthermore, once a computer lab has been set up, it must be made sustainable, it needs security, someone to look after it. All of this entails an infrastructure of some kind.
This is why, it is very easy to donate computers, or to even set up computer centers and labs, but it is much harder to make them a success within a community.
It's actually much cheaper just to source a brand new dell laptop from a local supplier than to ship in in from half way around the world. Many companies, even a few African one's have localized hardware and special low-cost versions that do not sacrifice much performance and still offer the latest technologies. A low cost laptop/netbook/smartphone uses several MAGNITUDES less electricity than a bigbox cpu. Electricity is the biggest problem, or lack of it. Anyway, the economies of most African nations are growing at 5-10%, there is a lot of money to be made in IT. There are African multimillionaire being made in every African country due to the IT boom
I'm rambling now, but back to the e-waste, it's a huge problem, but on the other hand, if someone were to set up a properly functioning e-waste recycling business and properly employ the young men, give them training, and safety equipment, they could do a lot better for themselves.