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

Sat Nov 5 11:38:53 EAT 2005

I ask of Americans currently using the 63 million computers to 'dump' all of them in Kenya and pay a small dumping fee per computer.

Reasoning:

1. They are using them today so why cant we use them for the next 5 years ( 2010 MDGs?)
2. The newspaper does not offer an alternative beyong the 'dumping' health scare
3. In Kenya 10,000 pcs are purchased every month in a population of 31 million. When shall Kenya have 15 million people connected to the internet?  
4.What about those old 386s stilll in circulation? should be dump into the sea?

Americans, please dump all the computers in Kenya. The little dumping fee shall be used for Universal Access Fund to transport them to Mandera, Loki, Kajiado, Bondo, Nanyuki, Nandi, Turkana...... the rural folks need internet not just the economic gems in Nairobi and Mombasa.

Many Kenyans long ago made child's play out of Schroedingers' equation and their intelligence should not be under-estimated. They are innovative enough to develop solar, wind power. Technology Should NOT be a preserve of a handful of city-based CEOs.

Gakuru

alice at apc.org wrote:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leonard Mware" 
To: "KIPlist" 
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 2005-11-02 05:50:19 
> EST5
> (Please reply to original submitter for private communication)
> ---
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