Slashdot Mirror
UK Man Sentenced To 16 Months For Exporting 'E-Waste' Despite 91% Reuse
retroworks writes: The Guardian uses a stock photo of obvious electronic junk in its coverage of the sentencing of Joseph Benson of BJ Electronics. But film of the actual containers showed fairly uniform, sorted televisions which typically work for 20 years. In 2013, the Basel Convention Secretariat released findings on a two-year study of the seized sea containers containing the alleged "e-waste," including Benson's in Nigeria, and found 91% of the devices were working or repairable. The study, covered by Slashdot in Feb. 2013, declared the shipments legal, and further reported that they were more likely to work than new product sent to Africa (which may be shelf returns from bad lots, part of the reason Africans prefer used TVs from nations with strong warranty laws).
Director of regulated industry Harvey Bradshaw of the U.K. tells the Guardian: "This sentence is a landmark ruling because it's the first time anyone has been sent to prison for illegal waste exports." But five separate university research projects question what the crime was, and whether prohibition in trade is really the best way to reduce the percentage of bad product (less than 100% waste). Admittedly, I have been following this case from the beginning and interviewed both Benson and the Basel Secretariat Executive Director, and am shocked that the U.K. judge went ahead with the sentencing following the publication of the E-Waste Assessment Study last year. But what do Slashdotters think about the campaign to arrest African geeks who pay 10 times the value of scrap for used products replaced in rich nations?
Director of regulated industry Harvey Bradshaw of the U.K. tells the Guardian: "This sentence is a landmark ruling because it's the first time anyone has been sent to prison for illegal waste exports." But five separate university research projects question what the crime was, and whether prohibition in trade is really the best way to reduce the percentage of bad product (less than 100% waste). Admittedly, I have been following this case from the beginning and interviewed both Benson and the Basel Secretariat Executive Director, and am shocked that the U.K. judge went ahead with the sentencing following the publication of the E-Waste Assessment Study last year. But what do Slashdotters think about the campaign to arrest African geeks who pay 10 times the value of scrap for used products replaced in rich nations?
That's the problem with Capitalism these days, if you're not bribing the right people in government, you can't sell stuff.
Remember, arbitrage is only legal when dealing with intangible financial instruments. Arbitrage with actual products is gauche and therefore punishable.
How is that a capitalism problem? Capitalism puts emphasis on the private sector, not the government. Furthermore, I don't think this is even something advocated by any private entities. All of the lobbying behind this is environmentalist groups (which actually tend to lean socialist and/or communist) who think that they're doing the planet a favor by preventing used electronics from going to countries that are often the last stop in the useful life of goods (when they "recycle" them, they send to scrap the valuable raw materials, and just trash or burn the rest.)
In this case, you have to decide what is worse: Preventing all technology exports to these countries (which guarantees that they'll remain in third world status forever) or allowing about 20% of these goods to end up being discarded on the ground.
This problem is cultural in nature rather than cost related in nature. For example, in countries like Liberia it is actually common for people to defecate in public and just leave it there (they don't even bury it,) and often eat in the same place (breaking the old "don't shit where you eat" rule.) This creates a health AND environmental hazard that really has nothing to do with technology or politics, rather it's just really bad decisions made by the people over there.
Depriving them of technology will NOT solve this problem.
I think, as an American, I need to wait for a politician or a celebrity to tell me what my opinion should be. I'm quite sure I'm outraged, I'm just not sure why yet.
Be Excellent To Each Other
I would definitely take a working 20 year old TV if I had no hope of getting one any other way. It's all about "what can I afford".
These TVs are waste because they are not digital, the countries they are going to are probably a long way from going digital.
One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure.
I've got a Nigerian neighbour (I live in Australia) who fills containers with electronics and sends them to Africa. I spoke to him about it and he said that they repair the stuff there, and reuse most of it. Considering that the analogue TV signal was switched off last year, and essentially all CRT TV's don't work, a lot have been dumped on streets, and they naturally been picking them up for free.
So it's surprising that they so blatantly claim that they're dumping them, when I can hardly see the sense in spending the money on shipping containers half way across the globe, only to dump it there, when it has already been dumped here. Clearly there's some thing going on which the business world isn't particularly keen on. If this person jailed was being paid to dispose of garbage and he was just dumping it in countries that don't care about dumping, then that's a different matter, but I get the feeling that our garbage is somewhat more valuable in developing countries.
In the UK, that's the normal sentence for defending oneself from a criminal attack or leaving your wheelie trash bin out an extra day.
Actually, the party elite in the soviet union were bribed regularly in order to make sure things happened when they needed to. A government demanding bribes for doing what it's supposed to do is not 'capitalism.'
Yep. Because selling used equipment to Africa can be called illegal export of e-waste, it has to be destroyed and a lot ends up in landfills. Real fucking green.
Valuable components for repair of other TVs can be easily desoldered from irreparably broken TVs. This would reduce the environmental load in today's world when the planet is already overloaded.
On the other hand how to dispose of the rest when the country doesn't have proper facilities for that.
I think the question whether something is waste or not and whether its good or bad to export it to third world countries is pretty complicated.
I wonder if it would be illegal to mass desolder second hand electronic components and send them to the third world country for the purpose of repair of broken TVs (regardless of questions of economy or component reliability).
If containing broken pieces makes a shipment illegal - if a manufacture ships a container of new TVs and some of them are defective, is it classified as illegal export of waste and the manufacturer goes to jail for 16 months?
Karel Kulhavy, Twibright Labs
These TVs are waste because they are not digital, the countries they are going to are probably a long way from going digital.
CRTs also hold up to the elements much better, and some places do not have 24hr AC. Or any AC. (Air conditioning, not power)
Dell has a program here where I live to destroy all computers that are donated to Goodwill. It doesn't matter if it's two years old or ten years old, if you donate a PC to Goodwill, Dell has a bounty on it and off it goes to the shredder.
I'd hardly call it a 'green' program. It's Dell insuring that there isn't a strong secondary market for PCs. It's heartbreaking sometimes to see the nice new keyboards, mice, and displays come out on the sales floor, and know that recent-vintage machines were probably donated with them.
Oh, and it's because the bogey-man would get the 'information' on the hard drives. And... and... and... somebody might install something from Microsoft on the machines that they didn't properly pay for... or worse... something other than Microsoft.
Damn, you're stupid.
Most of these "environmental" laws exist to stifle the used product market, preventing manufacturers from being undercut by their own older models. This is capitalism buying regulations in their favor.