Acid Baths Come Free

Here in eReco land we have taken a strong position against the illegal export of WEEE to countries such as Ghana. If you read back through previous blog posts you will see a lot of angst but does it make a difference? Does anyone give a flying fortress?

Then someone followed us on Twitter, @Africaewaste to be precise, and I had a good look at their website here to see what they were all about. I urge you to go and take a look and read their newsletters, especially the one from October 2014.

And this is South Africa. I am not an expert on Africa by any means but as I understand it South Africa is one of the wealthier countries, and one of the more progressive. It makes you wince. I read the story of acid baths being used to separate metal and thought of kids doing the work for pennies and getting sick and wondered how many of those machines had been donated to a ‘charity’ or collected by a free service in the UK?

Because this is the ultimate price we are paying for all those free collections. Ok, let’s be reasonable here, not all of them. Some of them must be making money by other means than dumping on Africa but I have to tell you I struggle to see how, unless they are cutting corners somewhere.

Bob Geldof embarrassed us all with the original Live Aid. His ‘give us your fecking money’ approach to fundraising certainly upset a few applecart’s but as he said, kids were dying. Well kids are still dying and we are all complicit in it.

I talked to a prospect this morning. Nice lady. She explained that her IT equipment all went to a charity. I began to ask some questions, she began to hum and ha. She did not know what they did with the equipment. She was not sure how they removed her data or what paperwork she got, but it was for a charity, so it must be ok?

In short, I was banging my commercial head against a brick wall. Mention the word charity and we all want to jump into a bath of baked beans or run a marathon in a bunny suit. Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse used to do sketches about it...everything is fine as long as it is for charity.

Well in this case it isn’t. To paraphrase what Sir Bob might say, it’s a fecking disgrace. Not only are far too many businesses and organisations risking a serious data breach but they are also aiding the exploitation of third world countries. Oxfam are running TV campaigns about children dying in the Sudan at the moment, and yet people are donating their PC’s to Africa? They need food, they need clean water, they need medicine...they do not need a Facebook page.

I do not have all the figures. This is a blog not Panorama. I believe 190k tons of UK WEEE ends up in Ghana every year. Africa is a big place and there must lots of directions things can enter from, so it must be hard to ever get a true picture. But can we not apply a little commonsense here?

Yes, these collections are free. But ask yourself how and why? Even if it is a charity, they have costs to cover before they even make any money for their particular cause. How can they keep you compliant for no charge? What is going to happen to the data? Where is the equipment going to end up?

Maybe you don’t care? Maybe paying £50 to get rid of that rubbish in the store cupboard is too rich for your palate? Free sounds so much better...even if someone else pays a heavy price? Well just think about that acid bath, just think about the people who are forced to scrape a living dealing with your waste. Just think about 190k tons every year in Ghana.

I clearly want you to use us to recycle your WEEE. I admit our commercial interest, but we are not the only ones trying to do things properly. Use someone who is. Please. People are being conned and misled and the planet, and its people, our brothers and sisters, are suffering badly as a result. And it’s such a small insignificant thing.

Please let’s stop being blasé. Let’s start being truly responsible. Let’s forget about what we paid for that shiny new laptop 4 years ago and think about it buried in Africa, or bubbling away in an acid bath. Responsible recycling doesn’t cost a fortune, but only you can make sure that it does not cost the Earth.

Charity Begins at Home

Ever since Sir Bob Geldof and the first Live Aid, Africa is an emotive beacon for charitable endeavours. And rightly so. We should all be happy to help people less fortunate than ourselves. In this day and age to see people starving is simply intolerable, whilst the building of schools, the digging of wells and the provision of medical resources is vital work.

But not computers. Sending our old computers out to Africa may seem like a good idea. Obviously who would want to deprive the people of Africa of Facebook? It must be a good thing to get the millions of Africans connected to the WWW...

Except it isn’t. Not for the planet at any rate.

eReco, like any business serious about sustainability, will not send any electrical equipment to any country or continent that does not have serious a WEEE commitment. Because it will end up in landfill and come back to haunt us. We cannot get away with passing our waste onto someone else who cannot deal with it properly.

So, what do you do instead? It is a question we get asked a lot and there is only one answer. Turn your old assets into cash and give money rather than equipment. That is something a reputable service provider will help you with and we have to spread the word about sustainability. To do that we have to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Obviously once they have the cash, they can buy their own equipment and that could end up in landfill. That would be a shame but we cannot change opinions by shrugging our shoulders and helping people do the wrong things. We all have to make a stand.

I know. I do, honestly, I know. It’s a bit preachy.

This is where I get a tad uncomfortable with the green lobby but fear not, I am not about to chain myself to a tree. But in doing good, I think we should try and make sure that we don’t do harm.

Let me be crystal clear here. I am not saying do not help Africa. Everyone has a right to choose who they help and whatever I think about your charitable donations is an irrelevance. But the WEEE regulations are one of the few European regulations that I personally approve of. We should all be trying to make things from things that can be used again...it is simple commonsense.

And opening up poorer economies to the delights of IT is the first step on sending them down a path we have already followed to rampant consumerism. Sales of gadgets are already growing and they will grow through the proverbial roof. So we need to pass on what we have learned and stop them making the same mistakes we made in the past.

As Einstein said ‘the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’. If we do not pass on what we have learned, we are failing those that are slightly behind us on the curve.

Sustainability and the Boomtown Rat

Life is like a flow chart. Every decision, however innocuous, sends you off in a different direction. Yes or no. Tea or coffee. In or out. We all make snap decisions that change the course of our lives all the time. We usually have no idea whether they were right or wrong. We simply have to live with the consequences of our choices.

Businesses are just the same. Good decisions can be made on the spur of the moment. Remember the guy from Decca Records in 1963. He decided that guitar bands were a thing of the past. He watched four chancers from Liverpool audition and told their manager he was not at all interested. So The Beatles signed for Parlophone instead and that funded EMI, who were one of the most successful music industry giants of all time, until the rise of iTunes.

He made up for it a year later though; he signed The Rolling Stones.

Not every decision is that important, but they all have consequences. Sustainability and the efficient reuse of our limited resources depends on us all making good decisions. Not everyone is green. Not in the campaigning sense at any rate. But given the right information, most people will separate their rubbish and put it in the right bins.

This makes a difference. Yes I know China has opened 22 coal-fired power stations since I started writing this post but that is not the point. If we all take personal responsibility for our own actions we will change things. We don’t all have to burn our bras but we do need to do our bit.

I do hate it when politicians or campaigners get preachy. They make it all sound so pious and I am sure that attitude turns as many people off as it turns on. I much preferred Bob Geldof’s fund raising style...’give some focking money’...to the Archbishop of Canterbury wittering on. That might just be me of course...

Electrical waste will become more of an issue, not less. Electronic devices are taking over. No sooner has the iPhone 6 been launched than iPhone 7 is being talked about...and that means upgrades and old kit being disposed of. According to latest figures there are now 7.19 BILLION ‘mobile devices’ in this world.

So we have to start being responsible. Not blasé, apathetic or mean-spirited, but truly responsible. I am not just talking about asset disposal either, although that is eReco’s own area of expertise and self-interest. From the manufacturers to the end user, we all have to think things through.

The cost of disposing of old kit is an irrelevance. It’s recycling is not. That does not mean a company like ours should charge you a fortune...far from it. And it does not mean that you should not be able to benefit from extending the lifecycle of equipment beyond your ownership. But it does mean that we should prioritise the recycling aspect above costs or cash back.

Price is not everything. We have all heard that before. It usually comes fourth or fifth in any survey mainly because we do not like to admit we are tight, I suspect. When buying any equipment, we should consider price but we should also consider lifecycle and sustainability.

Bob Geldof would put it rather succinctly I am sure. Paul McCartney would probably right a song about it, hopefully not with the Frog chorus. Forget about the Chinese and let’s get our own house in order.

Let’s put sustainability at the top of the agenda in 2015.