David

I'm not sure that this article is any more accurate than the original
and smells awfully of political activists. Cynically, it ststes that the
easily-obtainable waste is extracted in the USA before shipping. In my
local newspaper, one of the photos shows a Chinese lady removing the
deflection yoke from a monitor tube, for its copper. I would have
thought that this was a very easily-obtained and marketable waste,
removable in a matter of seconds.

One of the major problems, I believe, is that there is one major
non-ratified signatory to the Basel Convention on the Control of
Tranboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes (see
http://www.unep.ch/basel/about.html ). In fact, there are three
non-ratifiers: Afghanistan, Haiti and ... the United States of America.
148 countries + the EU have ratified it.

The Convention is currently editing guidelines on recycling and
reclamation of metals and metal compounds, specifically antimony (Sb),
arsenic (As), beryllium (Be), cadmium (Cd), chromium (only hexavalent
compounds), copper (but only some compounds), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg),
selenium (Se), tellurium (Te), thallium (Tl) and zinc (but only some
compounds), although some other metals are being considered, such as
nickel.  Electronic waste is specifically mentioned as falling under the
Convention and it would therefore appear to be illegal to export it in
an uncontrolled manner from or to Parties having ratified it. The 47
page draft document is visible at
http://www.unep.ch/basel/R4_webversion.doc . If anyone feels that they
may be able to comment on this draft, you have a few days to do so. This
document has an extensive list of references.

Best regards,

Brian

David Suraski wrote:
>
> The article below is along the same lines as others discussed recently on
> the leadfree listserv.  I offer it without comment.
>
> Regards,
> David Suraski
>
> By Thomas G. Donlan
> Here's recycling in real life: Leading newspapers last week featured
> pictures of Chinese women breaking up personal computers for the precious or
> not-so-precious metals inside them. They were shown roasting circuit boards
> over charcoal fires to melt out the solder for its lead, using nitric acid
> to free small amounts of gold from electrical contacts, and dumping leftover
> sludge into local rivers, swamps and agricultural irrigation canals.
> In Giuyu, a town about four hours inland from Hong Kong, as many as 100,000
> people are employed in reclaiming scraps of value from high-tech trash.
> Different neighborhoods have organized themselves into different
> specialties. The people earn $1.50 a day, if that.
> This is not an isolated abuse or oddity, according to the sources of the
> news stories. Muckraking researchers from the Basel Action Network and the
> Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition say it's an international industry. Millions
> of pounds of electronic trash -- more than half of all recycled e-junk -- is
> sold and shipped out of the United States each year.
> Where does this junk come from, and how does it get to small towns in China
> and slums in Indian cities? It's the natural result of the great and noble
> recycling movement, aided and subsidized by the good intentions and charity
> of many conscientious Americans.
> Voluntary recycling of computer parts avoids waste and keeps toxins and
> heavy metals out of garbage dumps. Involuntary recycling is even more
> efficient: Under pressure from environmental groups who fear toxins leaking
> into groundwater, Massachusetts and California forbid their garbage dumps to
> accept TVs and computer monitors, and the U.S. Environmental Protection
> Administration is developing a new rulebook for handling electronic trash to
> keep noxious stuff out of all American dumps.
> Supply and Demand
> Recycling is more than an environmental movement; it is inevitably a
> business as well. If unwanted stuff cannot be made to vanish in a landfill,
> it's got to go somewhere else. And if the owners of that stuff can sell it,
> it will be sold.
> When a person is inspired to give an old computer to the local recyclers,
> that's the only act of charity in the sequence of events that follows. The
> old computer, which once sold for $2,000 and now is worth almost nothing as
> a computer, becomes an unnatural resource containing perhaps $20 worth of
> valuable commodities, even though they must be mined from a bedrock of
> almost completely worthless glass and plastic.
> Local recyclers have a finely-developed knowledge of what can be stripped
> easily and sold profitably in the U.S., and the market has honed their
> sensitivity to the law of diminishing returns. They take what they can use
> or sell quickly. Whatever's left goes into a shipping container bound for
> Giuyu or a place like it, where other people can't afford not to mine the
> tiny amount of remaining resource value.
> The authors of the report on high-tech trash, who are environmental
> activists appalled at the unexpected consequences of this form of recycling,
> have concluded that the process is a moral abomination.
> "E-waste exports to Asia are motivated entirely by brute global economics,"
> the authors say. "Market forces, if left unregulated, dictate that toxic
> waste will always run 'downhill' on an economic path of least resistance. If
> left unchecked, the toxic effluent of the affluent will flood towards the
> world's poorest countries where labor is cheap, and occupational and
> environmental protections are inadequate. A free trade in hazardous wastes
> leaves the poorer peoples of the world with an untenable choice between
> poverty and poison -- a choice that nobody should have to make."
> The choice, however, is only untenable to those who do not live in Giuyu.
> The activists and muckrakers propose to pre-empt that choice for the 100,000
> workers in Giuyu so that they cannot choose work with poisonous substances
> over idleness, greater poverty and possible starvation.
> The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition proposes a law that would require
> manufacturers to take back the hulks of old computers and other electronics
> gear and dispose of them "properly." The authors of the report on high-tech
> trash exports say this would force manufacturers to design new generations
> of machinery that could be recycled safely and cheaply in the United States.
> The Wealth of Nations
> Underlying the environmental plight of Giuyu is the fact of global
> inequality of wealth. Some people and nations are rich and dispose of things
> without much thought of where they end up; some people and nations are poor
> and must scrape and claw at trash to earn tiny amounts of cash.
> The United States, of course, has so much of the world's wealth, something
> like 25%, and only 5% of the world's people. We are told, usually indirectly
> in such stories as that of the e-trash industry of Giuyu, that this is a
> terrible thing. The implication is that the people of Giuyu suffer for our
> sins. Sometimes we are told that this is such a bad thing that it explains
> why so many of the world's lunatics and illiterates blame the United States
> for their problems.
> The fault usually lies not in the States, but in the unsuccessful countries.
> Countries are rich almost in perfect order with the degree that their
> governments let their citizens alone. Countries are poor almost in perfect
> order with the degree that their governments tax, confiscate, regulate and
> fail to protect the property of their subjects. Giuyu is in China, after
> all. China is a country that only recently and partially has acknowledged
> the existence of the laws of economics. The people of Giuyu, miserable
> though they are, have taken the first step up from the permanent, hopeless
> misery of the collective farm.
> Trade of all kinds between China and the United States is unequal. We should
> not be surprised that there is unequal trade in trash. But it is unequal
> trade that gradually changes the wealth of nations, making poor nations
> richer as they embrace economic freedom.
> Exchanges of Freedom
> We know how to measure political freedom: We observe which countries have
> border guards keeping people in, and which countries have border patrols
> keeping people out. Economic freedom can be measured in a similar way:
> countries that aren't free do not let their people do business with other
> nations; free countries welcome trade in both directions and let their
> citizens decide what to buy and sell.
> Both kinds of freedom have dynamic impacts: If borders between two countries
> become more open, the people of the more oppressed and poorer country
> rapidly become less oppressed and less poor. (The richer country's citizens
> also gain, but not as much, because they already have so much.)
> Examples of such gains abound, but look at one that's easy and close at
> hand. Over the last two decades, the United States and Mexico have opened
> their borders to ideas, investment and trade. Even immigration is easier,
> though still not entirely legal. Mexicans now have a more representative
> government, and they have more economic opportunities. Goods in their stores
> are cheaper and jobs are more plentiful. The stores and the places of
> employment are more likely to have an American brand name, but that has
> become of less importance to Mexicans, who are giving up self-oppression in
> the name of independence.
> Some call free trade exploitation, whether they see it in the border
> industries of Mexico or the faraway scrap heaps of Giuyu. Vladimir Ilyich
> Lenin fostered the tale of cruel exploitation a century ago and many people
> believe his story to this day, even if they do not know its source. It's
> grounds for revolutions that would put his ideas in power. Lenin promised
> that only the state could expand industry to employ everyone in good working
> conditions, because only the state would treat all workers fairly. The
> Chinese Revolution, among others, revealed the horror behind Lenin's empty
> promise.
> There is a link between American prosperity and Mexican or Chinese poverty.
> But the link is not exploitation. It is opportunity, liberty and a fair
> exchange of services at market rates.
> The people of Giuyu are doing honest work with the limited tools they own.
> With so few tools, the environmental damage to the land around Giuyu is a
> necessary cost of their business. Those who would help the people of Giuyu
> and save their environment should invest in improving their businesses, not
> take them away with another arbitrary law made in America.