[Kictanet] Fw: NYTimes: Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's

[alice at apc.org]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leonard Mware" <mleonardo at yahoo.com>
To: "KIPlist" <kiplist-cl at lyris.idrc.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 1:44 PM
Subject: NYTimes: Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's


> Thought this could provoke some debate on used computers.
>
> apologies if you have already seen it.
> leonard
>
> Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's, Report Says By LAURIE J. FLYNN
> October 24, 2005
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/technology/24junk.html?th&emc=th
>
> Much of the used computer equipment sent from the United States to
> developing countries for use in homes, schools and businesses is often
> neither usable nor repairable, creating enormous environmental problems
> in some of the world's poorest places, according to a report to be
> issued today by an environmental organization.
>
> The report, titled "The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to
> Africa," says that the unusable equipment is being donated or sold to
> developing nations by recycling businesses in the United States as a
> way
> to dodge the expense of having to recycle it properly. While the
> report,
> written by the Basel Action Network, based in Seattle, focuses on
> Nigeria, in western Africa, it says the situation is similar throughout
> much of the developing world.
>
> "Too often, justifications of 'building bridges over the digital
> divide'
>
> are used as excuses to obscure and ignore the fact that these bridges
> double as toxic waste pipelines," says the report. As a result, Nigeria
> and other developing nations are carrying a disproportionate burden of
> the world's toxic waste from technology products, according to Jim
> Puckett, coordinator of the group.
>
> According to the National Safety Council, more than 63 million
> computers
> in the United States will become obsolete in 2005. An average computer
> monitor can contain as much as eight pounds of lead, along with
> plastics
> laden with flame retardants and cadmium, all of which can be harmful to
> the environment and to humans.
>
> In 2002, the Basel Action Network was co-author of a report that said
> 50
> percent to 80 percent of electronics waste collected for recycling in
> the United States was being disassembled and recycled under largely
> unregulated, unhealthy conditions in China, India, Pakistan and other
> developing countries. The new report contends that Americans may be
> lulled into thinking their old computers are being put to good use.
>
> At the Nigerian port of Lagos, the new report says, an estimated 500
> containers of used electronic equipment enter the country each month,
> each one carrying about 800 computers, for a total of about 400,000
> used
> computers a month. The majority of the equipment arriving in Lagos, the
> report says, is unusable and neither economically repairable or
> resalable. "Nigerians are telling us they are getting as much as 75
> percent junk that is not repairable," Mr. Puckett said. He said that
> Nigeria, like most developing countries, could only accommodate
> functioning used equipment.
>
> The environmental group visited Lagos, where it found that despite
> growing technology industries, the country lacked an infrastructure for
> electronics recycling. This means that the imported equipment often
> ends
> up in landfills, where toxins in the equipment can pollute the
> groundwater and create unhealthy conditions.
>
> Mr. Puckett said the group had identified 30 recyclers in the United
> States who had agreed not to export electronic waste to developing
> countries. "We are trying to get it to be common practice that you have
> to test what you send and label it," he said.
>
> Mr. Puckett also said his group was trying to enforce the Basel
> Convention, a United Nations treaty intended to limit the trade of
> hazardous waste. The United States is the only developed country that
> has not ratified the treaty.
>
> Much of the equipment being shipped to Africa and other developing
> areas
> is from recyclers in the United States, who typically get the used
> equipment free from businesses, government agencies and communities and
> ship it abroad for repair, sale or to be dismantled using low-cost
> labor.
>
> Scrap Computers, a recycler in Phoenix, has eight warehouses across the
> United States to store collected electronics before they are shipped to
> foreign destinations, and Graham Wollaston, the company's president,
> says he is opening new warehouses at the rate of one a month. Mr.
> Wollaston, who describes his company as a "giant sorting operation,"
> said there was a reuse for virtually every component of old electronic
> devices: old televisions are turned into fish tanks for Malaysia, and a
> silicon glass shortage has created huge demand for old monitors, which
> are turned into new ones. "There's no such thing as a third-world
> landfill," Mr. Wollaston said. "If you were to put an old computer on
> the street, it would be taken apart for the parts."
>
> Mr. Wollaston said the system was largely working, though he conceded
> that some recyclers dump useless equipment in various developing
> nations, most notably China. "One of the problems the industry faces is
> a lack of certification as to where it's all going," he said. He says
> his company tests all equipment destined for developing nations.
>
> The Environmental Protection Agency concedes that "inappropriate
> practices" have occurred in the industry, but said it did not think the
> problem should be addressed by stopping all exports.
>
> "E.P.A. has been working with the Organization for Economic Cooperation
> and Development countries for the last several years on development of
> a
> program that would provide much greater assurance that exports of
> recyclable materials will be environmentally sound," Tom Dunne, of the
> agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, wrote in an
> e-mail message.
>
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> ---
> Submitted by: Leonard M Oloo <mleonardo at yahoo.com> 2005-11-02 05:50:19 
> EST5
> (Please reply to original submitter for private communication)
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