[WSIS CS-Plenary] Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's, Report Says

[Ralf Bendrath]

Something from the dark side of "bridging the digital divide"...
The full report "The Digital Dump" is here: 
http://www.ban.org/BANreports/10-24-05/index.htm

Does anybody know if people from the Basel Action Network are coming to Tunis?

Ralf
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Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's, Report Says

By LAURIE J. FLYNN
New York Times, October 24, 2005

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.


Related

Basel Action Network Web site: http://www.ban.org/