e-waste recycling MY ASS

[weirdlookinguy]

Hate to sound like an alarmist, liberal, tree-hugger, someone who gives a shit about the environment period, or just a straight up douche, but I came up on some pictures of what becomes of "e-waste" when you take it to those douchebaggy recycling events you always see advertised on TV:

http://www.ban.org/photogallery/index.html#Lagos

They get shipped back to China, where everything is burned, dunked in acid for the gold/silver/etc content, and then the remains are dumped in the river.

That means that we're shipping all our OLD, QUALITY stuff to China, and replacing it with new Chinese-made SHIT that probably won't last too long, therefore starting the cycle again.

I don't care because of environmental concerns, it just irritates me to see all this quality, good stuff that I have a lot of respect for being destroyed in China, only to be replaced with cheap shit from the same country.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Screwed up on the URL, when you go to the page scroll UP for pictures of the burning, piles of good stuff, etc.

[Krankshaft]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Not all places are like this there are REAL recycling centers out there.

[hardwareguy]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Ditto, only the shady ones do this.

The real ones do something cool....they desolder ALL the solid state bits. The scrappers learned a long time ago that one chip could be worth more than the metals in 10 boards so they started salvaging the components as well.

This gets done on a small scale to fill the junk box....the old boards are then sent too the local ewaste place where they arent too happy to take it as they know what they arent getting.

These misguided 3rd world operations are not only devastating their environment, they are losing most of the value. One good power transistor may be worth more than all the copper in a monitor.

[NxB]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Yep, tons of that stuff looks fixable. I'm sure they could get a bunch of those little TVs working and make a killing, especially over there. The computers too. Probably some P3s in that stack. I'm sure new stuff in Nigeria is not affordable to the locals while the older PCs could be.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

It just pisses me off, seeing all this old, good quality stuff being treated like scrap metal. I have a lot of respect for old computers... They dont make em like they used to.

[pentium]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Last time I was at FreeGeek Vancouver they were discussing this.
FreeGeek dismantles and processes the components accordingly AND resells any items that might still be of value.
There's another rival recycler here (the infamous group whi were calling the police on me) who do exactly as you said and gather up containers of electronics, ship it abroad and let a third world country handle it.

[NxB]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

What did they call the cops over?

[pentium]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

What did they call the cops over?

They tried to nail me on harassment because I was walking up to them and offering money for stuff they were recycling.

[Nama]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Ok. I would like to shed some light on this subject I have worked for both shady companies and honest ones

Shady Company 1- 5
1. It does not just get shipped to China China pays huge amounts of money because they want to buy our waste.

2.China breaks down the boards and resells all the components to huge companies in Japan to reuse in new electronics, This is why you can't get a good new product.

3.China extracts all the gold also and sells it.

4.In China you get paid lots of money to expose yourself to these enviromental hazards, people make more in one day than in a week at a normal job if they can find one.

5. It's just like the drug trade if people did not want drugs people would not ship them here.

Remember It is illegal to send anything to china that is E-Waste, But also remember they want it. It is our laws not China's laws that prohibit it.

A honest recycling company "I work for an excellent company now that sends nothing over seas"

1. We spend $75,000 a month to properly dispose of mercury, CCFL's and CRT TV's and monitors

2. We recycle by doing the same thing they do in China "except for the resale of components to major corporations" We separate plastic, metal and gold

3. We refurbish 80% of LCD's, PC's and other medical equipment sent to out facility.

4. We offer a reasonable price to lower income families in need of tech related products.

5. If we did not provide a place to drop off this "Waste" it would all go to the landfill anyways.

I worked with Executive recycling the company who got in huge trouble when 60 min traced one of the containers they shipped illegally to China and you would not believe the wrath the government brought down on them. CBI, FBI, EPA, ICE just to name a few. I think it's horrible to send this shit to 2nd and 3rd world countries. But I also have to think they kind of ask for it mostly because they DO!. After american companies started getting busted the Chinese companies that buy it from us set up companies in Canada and now they send reps from Canada that seem legit to recyclers in the USA to buy the same shit and then send it to China.

Trust me some of the recycling companies are 100% honest something has to be done with the waste.

[Nama]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

http://current.com/1g38m4c

That is the company I worked with, And the fucked up thing is they are still in business just under another name. But believe it or not the owner and people that work there are very nice people. Seems like the China mafia types find a way to get this E-Waste like it or not.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

2.China breaks down the boards and resells all the components to huge companies in Japan to reuse in new electronics, This is why you can't get a good new product.

Doubt it.

[NxB]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

I'm sure there are SOME recyclers that break down the boards for components over there but most of what I've seen is just like nigeria. They burn and try to get the "precious" metals out when they could have sold the ICs and made a buck.

I bet only Sony reuses electronics. If they are selling them they are going to repair places (which there is a fair amount of in China).

[Toasty]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

>>when they could have sold the ICs and made a buck<<

But, you have to agree that has a limited rate of return. Those IC's are useful to whom? Yes, the "repair" industry has a limited use, but in this society? Toss it out, get the new one that does 10 more things 6 different ways. (and I still don't care... )

Searching for chips we find all these companies with reportedly 1,000's of chips on a request-for-quote (RFQ) basis. Do you really think I'm going to pay somebody $50 for a 20 year old chip for a $200 television?

275,000 cell phones -A DAY- !!!
=
Los Angeles - EVERYone gets a new cell phone -every- month
Denver - EVERYone gets one -every- 52 hours

[NxB]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

I thought about that. We are a very throw away society. With such a high turnover with electronics I can see them running out of buyers rather quickly. Realistically they would be best off selling the stuff locally after repairing it. But I'm sure there is a lack of skill and in some places even no electricity.

[starmaxpc]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

for those that have or have not seen.. a definite eye opener....

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/st...dex.html#react

[NxB]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Its umm... very sensationalist. They were saying women were breathing lead fumes from solder. When did they start using lead free solder on everything? The files they found were probably old and garbage, not to say more modern stuff doesn't show up: What exactly can you do with CC and bank info from 2001? The defense dept files were also probably very uninformative. Nobody, even the FBI guy were seriously worried. He had to come up with a hypothetical situation where the files COULD be a security breach.

None of these people know ANYTHING about electronics/computers. They bought a maybe 60gb HDD for $350. That guy in Ghana must have loved it.

And like OH MY GOD!!!! you can plug an HDD into a working computer and READ THE DATA! Somebody call the president! Just deleting the files doesn't really delete them!

Also, none of these places have a bulk eraser? Especially school districts and Northrop Grumman?

[Krankshaft]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

Not to mention you CAN'T get lead poisoning from breathing solder fumes the fumes are from the rosin in the flux. A soldering iron at normal soldering temperatures isn't hot enough to vaporize the lead.

If you eat or lick the stuff on a regular basis that's another story .

[japlytic]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

If I did export e-waste for recycling, I would have this policy:
* Do not export to countries with bad human rights records.
* Do not export to companies which are known to use child labour.
* Impose restrictions on the use of prison labour.
* Ensure that all employees are adequately protected against the hazards of the job, with random auditing by government and international bodies.

[kc8adu]

Re: e-waste recycling MY ASS

If I did export e-waste for recycling, I would have this policy:
* Do not export to countries with bad human rights records.
* Do not export to companies which are known to use child labour.
* Impose restrictions on the use of prison labour.
* Ensure that all employees are adequately protected against the hazards of the job, with random auditing by government and international bodies.

are you going to personally police this?
you have no control once you sell the stuff.