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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."
They are going to join the soviet union?
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.
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!
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.
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".