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Multiple Studies Show Used Electronics Exports To Third World Mostly Good
retroworks writes "Bloomberg News reporter Adam Minter writes in today's Opinion section that several studies show that there's nothing really remarkable or scandalous about exports of used equipment to developing nations. 'Some is recycled; some is repaired and refurbished for reuse; and some is thrown into landfills or incinerators. Almost none of it, however, is "dumped" overseas.' Minter begins with the most recent study (PDF), released by the U.S. International Trade Commission in March 2013. Several other studies from Peru, Nigeria, Ghana and China show there was never an incentive for overseas buyers to pay money to import junk, and that most of the junk filmed by activists in the dumps in those nations was used for years (Nigeria has had TV since the 1970s). 'A 2011 study by the United Nations Environment Program determined that only 9 percent of the used electronics imported by Nigeria — a country that is regularly depicted as a dumping ground for foreign e-waste — didn't work or were unrepairable, and thus bound for a recycler or a dump. The other 91 percent were reusable and bound for consumers who couldn't afford new products.' The one data source Bloomberg cannot find is a data point for the widely reported 'statistic' that 80-90% of used electronics imported by Africans are burned or dumped. In the comment section, two advocates for legislation banning the exports object to the survey methodology of one of the studies. But the source of the original statistic, reported by Greenpeace and Basel Action Network in their fundraising campaigns, remains a mystery."
A lot of those "recycled" parts are remarked and sold on the market as either more expensive or newer parts. Keeping up with counterfeit electronics is becoming more of an issue every day for dealers and manufacturers as the third world sells our trash back to us masquerading as brand new technology.
As soon as these 3rd world countries become second world or emerging countries you can bet the quality of electronic imports will drastically plummet as they are flooded with cheap knockoffs or outright junk by criminals out for a quick buck.
But since the population of these nations don't have a buck, the products that are being imported are good because they are from charitable organizations who are operating altruistically.
Shh, you might cost a lot of non-profits a lot of money. If you can't convince the morons in big cities that something is a disaster, then you can't survive off the guilt of others.
Do you know what you are talking about, sir ?
"Counterfeit electronics" ?
The counterfeit electronics that I know of are things like fake resistors and fake capacitors from China and Vietnam --- and they are all ***BRAND NEW***, not something salvaged from old electronics
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Greenpeace making up statistics? That's nearly 100% untrue!
And greenpeace just making up statistics to support their agenda? Unthinkable!
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Hmm, Greenpeace caught out inventing arbitrary statistics without basis to support their line of argument again ? Who would have thought it would be possible at all ?
not so long ago Greenpeace found, in the cooling water of a nuclear reactor in a less than waspish country, so much tritium that had it been separated and sold, the GDP of the said country would have doubled overnight .. or the price of tritium would have falled to the price of good bourbon.
When GP or WWF or some other of their partners shout "disaster" it is because they want more money. They don't give a f....... for the real issues.
They may not be salvaged, but I would be really gratefull if it were only resistors and capacitors, which you can get a 1000 for cents. Actually I haven't ever seen a "fake resistor". If they are real, they work as good as the real ones, so I don't care.
The real problem is fake integrated circuits (IC), and it's a major problem at the moment.
Rich do-gooder takes pictures of poor person in less developed nation, raises funds. None of the funds go to the poor kids. In Africa, they have a different word for it... "Parasites of the Poor". The NGO made up a statistic from whole cloth and raised millions, not a dime goes to the kids in their landfill photos.
Do you know what you are talking about, sir ? "Counterfeit electronics" ? The counterfeit electronics that I know of are things like fake resistors and fake capacitors from China and Vietnam --- and they are all ***BRAND NEW***, not something salvaged from old electronics
Read the OP's post again: "remarked and sold on the market as either more expensive or newer parts". That's counterfeit, you think you're buying X when it's actually Y. And if you don't think it's counterfeit, I have a brand new 2013 model Mercedes S550 to sell you (please ignore the fact that it looks like a 1972 280SE).
Well, they don't just make up statistics; they insert alarmist and armageddonist factoids, too.
This story talks about junk imports (implied sale to end-user), a topic I never heard before. IIRC the problem with the 3rd world and electronics is that they get sent a lot of junk as "humanitarian aid", since shipping is way cheaper than recycling and as a byproduct even creates good PR.
Also reminds me of an audit in a Brazilian? port that found multiple shipping containers full of medical waste from an unknown English hospital. The waste was just sent to be forgotten there as an alternative to costly hazardous waste recycling.
FCKGW 09F9 42
The sad part is that I believed this since everybody reported the same thing. No journalism and fact-checking these days. I guess that's what happens when news turns into entertainment. News designed to produce an emotional response. Drama does this, but at least you know it's fiction.
We also export used hard disks, filled with personal data that may be recycled for fun and profit in third world nation that cannot afford Facebook-style or NSA-style data collection.
We purchased some dataflash for a project, and they came with paperwork from Atmel, and an independent chip inspection to prove they were genuine.
Unless you had your orders in 48 weeks ahead of time, you could not get a few hundred unless someone had excess inventory because production was scheduled so tightly in the fabs, and demand was so high.
They were sold through certified resellers who provided the lineage and guaranteed they were genuine (for 5 - 10 X the budgetary quotes they gave when we started the design) it was real easy to find counterfeits, but very difficult to find genuine parts!
I took a quick look at the introductory material of the report, and the data appeared to be for 2011. This is well after regulatory changes were made so the data may reflect a positive outcome from those regulatory changes.
(I'm no fan of "GreenPeace" and similar groups, but the degree of hate expressed by some people is beyond belief.)
I am all for environmental protections. I am pretty doggone liberal, but greenpeace makes your most extreme tinfoil hat wearing slashdot neck beard look normal.
Silence is a state of mime.
(Environmental) Fanatics saying anything to get people's attention and dollars? Who would have thought.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I once put up 2 free CRT TVs and had many requests from people wanting both of them. I can see wanting one if replacing a broken unit and strapped for cash, but who in this day in age hoards CRTs? The guy who showed up had a distinct african accent. I can only guess where the TVs went.
Another time, my office management organized a free e-waste recycling day. I dropped off some motherboard/CPUs, a printer, and some laptops. When handing over the stuff, I was greeted with a thank you. At that moment, I was dumbfounded. It was a kin to the garbage man thanking me for my garbage. These are my only recounts of e-waste recycling but every time, the middlemen handlers have been very grateful.
Actually, most US export containers are filled with scrap paper and chemical waste.
-- Jimtown Kelly
Except buying used marked as new is a problem with 1st world consultants not generally an issue with 3rd world manufacturers.
Do you know what you are talking about, sir ?
"Counterfeit electronics" ?
The counterfeit electronics that I know of are things like fake resistors and fake capacitors from China and Vietnam --- and they are all ***BRAND NEW***, not something salvaged from old electronics
It's not resistors and Caps you have to worry about. It's IC's. There's no real profit in counterfeiting a .01 cent part. But there are plenty of IC's out there that are well over $50/chip. It's really easy to pass off an amplifier IC that is of inferior design to a much more expensive one if you just mold it in a similar way and then stamp it with the other chips data. By the time you're done putting it in your design, you wont know for days that you've been ripped off.
<SARCASM>They'd never do that to further their agenda.</SARCASM>
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Ban all exports of old electronic equiptment! It's the "green" thing to do.
It's a great way to sell more new products.
Maybe Greenpeace has sold out to Big Consumerism
You must not have been around for the Great Motherboard Capacitor Rupturing of 1998, when just about every major motherboard manufacturing company fell victim to the hordes of fake caps being sold around Asia. Well, not fake exactly, but fake in that they were not as specified and only worked for a few months before bursting.
This is a huge problem, and I cannot believe counterfeiting was not even mentioned in the ITC report. Fake chips have shown up in military equipment, threatening untold number of lives. Here's a presentation by an Analog Devices rep reporting on the problem (pdf): http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2011/11%20November/Toohey%20Slides%20B%2011-08-11.pdf
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Real pictures, real gold, real pollution, wrongly implicated source.
Every nation has waste, and most have electronic trash. It doesn't all come from the US, as implied.
Here's an excellent example. This Article says the waste comes from the United States and Europe. If you zoom in a little to read the label, it comes from "World Bank" 9032, which is in Sudan. So scrap electronics in Africa (as portrayed by the other photos) did originate in Africa.
There's actually a really strong market for reduction of electronic waste, where they do recycle precious and scrap metals from them. That market depends on skilled workers using real equipment, not scavenger kids processing them by hand, and losing valuable scrap in the dirt.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I get my micros from microchipdirect. I can be certain they're not screwing me... right?
If they were sending you Atmel dataflash I'd be suspicious:)
From the PDF:
"informal processing describes the disassembly of UEP as by individuals in unregulated, often
impoverished, settings with little regard to health, safety, and the environment. The survey could not determine whether
U.S. exports of UEPs bound for recycling or disposal in 2011 were sent to such facilities, nor could it capture ad hoc shipments of undeclared
UEPs mixed in with exports of other items."
In other words, they still do not know what happens to the actual exports or even what the actual exports are. Basically using this study to draw conclusions about
the environmental impact is impossible. What it does say is there is a large amount of economic benefit, using their estimates. What the environmental impact, and secondary economic costs, might be is unknown. Using this document as nothing more than a rough economic estimate probably is probably invalid.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Anyone look at the original report? My scanning of it indicates that all the percentages being give are based on the "value" (i.e. money) of the UEPs (used electronic products). Am I wrong? In this light one would certainly expect that the most valuable and fully functional of the UEPs would remain domestic and be resold!
And, if true, this is quite possibly/probably not actually related at all to the 10+ year old statistic given offered by BAN, which gives me the impression to have been by volume (i.e. physical amount of junk); though the BAN report is not specific about this. The statistic in Bloomberg linked BAN report is offered hardly more than anedotally in a mere pull quote, attributed to "Informed recycling industry sources".
On the topic of data sources, I noticed in the new report, especially around the topic of "export", the data seems to be basically self-reported by the industry, and in places is guessed at as no one really knows what happens with a lot of the stuff that leaves the country. And probably not a lot of people in this industry in the US are anxious to give the impression that they are dumping on 3rd world countries, when reporting their data. Not to say the data isn't good or interesting data, but still there is room for questions as to the meaning and depth of some of the data.
It would also be interesting to know if things have changed significantly in the UEP industry in the last 10+ years. I'd imagine that it would have since the explosion of personal electronics. Surely there is a vastly greater amount of upgrade grind going on now, where people discard working devices just because their phone contract seduces them to upgrade, and the much higher prevalence of other devices such as laptops, tablets, audio players, etc. The percentages may have indeed significantly changed since BANs 10+ year old report.
It seems rather interesting how so many here are taking this as an opportunity to immediately attack Greenpeace, comparing a 10+ year old statistic (which may not even be based on the same units) with a brand new (probably well funded) industry report, reported via Bloomberg (not exactly a publication known for it's defense of the environment, or even science). This seems a little ridiculous, if not entirely pathetic.
Holy cow! A second person who actually read the PDF! What is slashdot coming to, informed debate?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Well, you may dispute the origin of the study, but they have data and the original one does not.
If this was real science, which one would you believe, the one with data and a methodology that you can criticize, or the one that pulls random numbers out of their ass for political gain?
In case of military stuff, if it prevents weaponry from working, it may just as well SAVE lives.
It's 2013 guys - if people around the world (and even spread it and compare it in studies) think, that landfills are a good idea and better than dumping in to the sea, it's time to get real....
I live in Uganda, where it is illegal to import used electronics. From my day to day experience this seems to have been a very good policy. There used to be a huge hassle with junk parts being palmed off to consumers; it would be very difficult to know what to trust. Since there are basically no effective consumer protection laws here, this was a big problem.
Donations of used computers to schools etc also had negative consequences. The first effect of that would be to undermine the business of Ugandan electronics dealers. The second was that a lot of donated stuff would end up on the market anyway (and often be sold as "nearly new" or "refurbished" to any buyers who could be tricked into it), creating the problems above. Basically, if you're thinking you should be giving your old laptop to the poor kids of Africa, first imagine it being sold off by the underpaid headmaster of the school, and secondly somebody using their scarce personal resources to buy it, having been promised by the seller that it is "good as new".
People who export E-Waste have released studies showing that E-Waste exporting is beneficial. Shocking. Also, even if that is accurate, 9% is a lot of E-Waste.
Did you look at the UNEP reports from Ghana and Nigeria in the article? There are now about 6 studies, of various methodology, which show 85-91% reuse of devices like CRT monitors and TVs (the lions share of the exports, and very low copper scrap value). So even if the recycling is horrific (something also yet to be proven, hand-disassembly is considered superior to shredding), which statistic supports $7000 shipping costs to Africa? And are you sufficiently comfortable, in criticizing the one study, with the arrests of 40 African traders last December in Europe?
The "statistic" in BAN's ten year old report was made up ten years ago. Jim Puckett has publicly admitted to fabricating it (his words were "it was an estimate") Most of the trade then was reuse (refurbishing display devices, in particular, though it was the refilling of ink cartridges that got BAN corporate donations).
The NGOs are distracting Interpol and other western agents of conscience from real problems, like ivory smuggling, rhino horn, conflict mining, etc. The "tinkerer economy" in emerging markets is actually the very best thing they have going, and to have made up a false statistic about African tinkerers which resulted in arrests and product seizures, is what is "entirely pathetic".
Nigeria uses PAL which is incompatible with the US NTSC TV system. So I ask you sir, what are they using those American TVs for? Breakfast tables?
And the NGOs continue to run press releases with the "ten year old statistic" (which they made up). From a recent press release:
"Placentia, California Joins Effort to Tackle Electronic Waste E-waste is the world’s fastest growing pollution problem. According to Time Magazine, Americans throw out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers every day. Approximately 80% of electronic waste currently delivered to recyclers is actually exported to developing countries. Improperly disposed of, the lead, mercury and other toxic materials inside e-waste can poison workers and pollute communities."
Placentia, CA paid BAN to certify they are not exporting bad equipment. If BAN doesn't know anything about the statistics on export of bad equipment, should BAN be in the certification business? And how do you justify their promotion of legislation to make the purchase of used equipment by Africans illegal?
http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/03/caer-is-wrong-about-e-waste-just-wrong.html
--
They were fake exactly, in that they didn't contain what they were supposed to contain. People who thought they were buying capacitors were actually buying tiny capacitor bombs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Dear Anonymous Coward:
Here is a link to the studies, funded by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the Basel Convention Secretariat... who I guess you consider to be "people who export E-Waste" (sources of the studies)
http://www.basel.int/Implementation/TechnicalAssistance/EWaste/EwasteAfricaProject/Publications/tabid/2553/Default.aspx
Oh, and the 9% fallout, that's less than brand new product, according to the Electrostatic Discharge Journal, and less than California store returns (11.9%). But just keep arresting those African polluters (http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/03/reuse-while-black-presumed-guilty.html), and lobbying for a bill in Congress to make the exports illegal.
Gently reply
Ragica,
The problem with your analysis is 1) there never was data ten years ago, 2) the "report" from ten years ago is still being circulated as "fact" in 2013, 3) African geeks (who fly to EU to buy the TVs and CRT computer monitors, etc.) are being profiled and arrested NOW. See Interpol 2013 press release on the arrests of 40 Africans in Europe. http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/03/reuse-while-black-presumed-guilty.html
The NGO's are promoting passage of a law (through a "big shred" industry group, CAER), which seems to be the "self reported by industry" smoking gun. CAER also published the phony data in 2013, see link to CAER "study" (repeating claim that 80% of exports are dumped) http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/03/caer-is-wrong-about-e-waste-just-wrong.html
So, believe it or not, most of the anger at BAN and Greenpeace is from Environmentalists and Peace Corps volunteers, like myself. I grew up in the deep South USA, and would compare the firehose of disinformation by these NGOs to the firefighters in Birgmingham Alabama, who used their water to hose down civil rights marchers. The firefighters in Birmingham were not "bad people", and I don't "attack them". But Africans are getting arrested despite detailed studies of the goods they import into Africa which find higher reuse rates than brand new product sold there. That seems to me more than a little ridiculous, and entirely pathetic. Are you ok with the Interpol arrests based on the 80-90% "primitive dumping" number? Should the Board of Directors of Greenpeace feel at peace with it?
Gently reply
Except that what the UNEP study found was the opposite - that developing nations buy the "capacitor plague" machines and (gasp!) fix the capacitor, the same as Americans and Europeans did in the 1970s. http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/09/e-waste-capacitor-heroes.html
Not really the same thing. Those caps were made by the companies that were marked on them. They were just made wrong because one company stole the electrolyte formula from another but their copy was missing ingredients.
I'm not convinced they haven't just continued making those bad caps though. I have a stack of old motherboards and other pcbs with bad caps in my garage. They were all made well after 1998.
"actually those fake resistors can be doped and painted with toxic as fuck materials. Including radioactivity."
Why? I wish you weren't A/C so that you might read this and reply with more details. Why would someone paint radioactive material on a resistor? Or.. why dope a resistor with anything? Certainly carbon isn't an expensive material!
The "stolen formula" was sold and resold among several companies. The end-product (the caps) weren't exactly fake, but the recipe the makers bought to manufacture them was fake. My theory is that the missing ingredients were deliberate... that it was a honeypot by a company that wanted to find out which of (or if) its employees was stealing secrets.
Thos are electrics, not electronics.
Many times it's the dealers who resell the faulty crap returned buy a previous costumer.
you say that when an aegis system freaks out and phalanxes (anti missile chain gun) the hell out of a harbor.
When a system has the ability to take human life, you don't want it to not work, or worse, fail in a destructive manner.
There is being a dove (I myself am a dove), but purposely sabotaging military gear because you want to save lives, and end up costing more lives when it fails at the exact wrong time, is Troll Logic at best, and being an evil douchebag at worst.