Where does America's e-waste end up? GPS tracker tells all | Hacker News Reader

Where does America's e-waste end up? GPS tracker tells all

pbs.org

150 pointswalterbell48 comments

The article says that USA is the only developed country that didn't signed an international treaty in e-waste and points to this link:

http://www.basel.int/Countries/StatusofRatifications/Parties...

But USA is listed in the page. It has a lot of footnotes: http://www.basel.int/Countries/StatusofRatifications/Parties...

Would anyone explain in plain English what these footnotes mean, and why the original article says USA didn't ratified the treaty?

There's a distinction between being a signatory vs having ratified the treaty.

The US is a signatory (the treaty was signed on 22 March 1990) which is why they are on the list, but it's not ratified since the US Congress has never passed legislation which would make the treaty "the law of the land"

The Basel Convention joins a distinguished list of signed but unratified treaties including the Convention on Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

> The Basel Convention joins a distinguished list of signed but unratified treaties including the Convention on Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

Except that the ABM Treaty was ratified in 1972; the US, under the mechanisms in the treaty, withdrew from it (terminating its effect entirely) in 2001, but that's a different issue than not ratifying it.

But it is only a technical difference - you say you want to do X and sign an agreement, then you decide you don't really want to do X and you don't ratify the agreement or you ratify it and later withdraw. The outcome is the same.

There's a considerable difference between never ratifying a treaty (in which case, it is never in force), and ratifying it, having it in force for nearly three decades, and then using the mechanism that the agreement itself provides to trigger its termination.

What is the difference with regard to the end result?

That the treaty applied for thirty years?

30 years of doing good doesn't count for very much if you then do something bad. If a 31 year old kills someone they can't use the prior 30 years of "not committing any murders" as evidence that they're actually a decent person.

A history of good character is frequently used as a legal defence to reduce or eliminate punishment.

The difference is that during the latter half of the Cold War, neither the US nor Soviet Union deployed the types of ABMs prohibited by the treaty, which would have increased the opposing countries dear of a first strike and increased the risk of nuclear war. While, frankly, I'm not convinced of the merits of the decision to pull out of the Treaty, it became substantially less relevant with the unravelling of the bipolar US/Soviet rivalry as the dominant geopolitical conflict, and there's at least an argument to be made that the US withdrawal and active pursuit of missile defense reduces the expected utility of new ballistic missile development by countries seeking them largely as a strategic tool against the US, giving the withdrawal a positive net deterrent effect in the non-bipolar world we now live in (there are also significant arguments that the net effect is not beneficial, and while I lean toward the latter conclusion, it's not an open-and-shut case.)

Withdrawing from the ABM Treaty is not analogous to murder.

The name is a bit confusing it actually just limits the defensive deployment of anti-ballistic missile bases designed to shoot down ballistic missiles it doesn't do anything to limit ballistic missiles like the name kind of implies. It wasn't really preventing anything and more just cranking up the consequences of nuclear war (could argue that that decreases the probability of it happening by taking away the ability to shield yourself effectively).

ABMs situated after the boost phase were kind of pointless soon after their invention anyways because the MIRV (multiple independent reentry vehicle) warheads + decoys could easily overwhelm them.

Those 30 years included the last couple decades of the cold war. There was clearly some benefit to having an arms reduction treaty in place while we were still staring down the Soviets.

It's not always a big deal. The USA got harumphed a lot for signing but not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, and yet it still met its reduction goal while a whole slew of European countries and Canada missed theirs. Actions speak louder than symbolism.

I would guess it is because of the whole thing where a treaty can be agreed to but isn't ratified unless the Senate approves it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification#United_States

Some of these treaties and conventions are enforced by the international community. The US agrees with the treaties, and so signs them, but disagrees with the enforcement and so does not ratify.

(Rhis is just my impression! Maybe I'm totally wrong).

This is an abysmal situation and I'm really glad that folks are following up on the issue and trying to add transparency to the shading dealings. However ...

Stuff like this (from the article) :

“We’re struggling for survival,” he said.

Prices for many commodities found in e-waste, a major source of revenue for electronics recyclers, have plunged in the past year.

So there is a recycling fee/tax that is paid, on a per item basis, that is well above the "commodity price of raw materials". Where did that money go? Where is the agency that I can turn in serial numbers to and collect $10 for each unique serial number that hasn't been turned in before?

And while I get that burning any long chain polymer is a recipe for creating hazardous gases, the ball got dropped long before this crap landed in the New Territories of Hong Kong. The article mentions how China has cracked down on the mainland, how hard is it to ask "who's the boss?" and then to put that person in jail? Sure you're going to destroy the "employment" of everyone at the junkyard, own that. It isn't impossible to build closed cycle incinerators, so let the "rich" countries build those.

I once contacted the UK's Environment Agency as I wanted to find a reputable local Waste Treatment Facility to receive my WEEE (I fix computers and occasionally sell parts/take old parts for recycling). Since I was acutely aware of how much they had charged me to hold a Waste Transfer certificate I figured the least I could do was make sure my money was put to good use.

They replied saying they do not conduct any checks of facilities, keep any record of infringements or publish any data on what facilities do with the electrical waste they received. I was surprised that this surprised me, really.

(This was some years ago so my use of nomenclature may be incorrect)

It would be interesting to repeat the experiment somewhere like the UK, and see if the laws there make any difference.

I'm actually really interested in the technical details of the tracking devices. They had to have batteries that lasted months and they had to be designed to work with the cellular networks in basically any country on Earth. (I'm assuming they weren't satellite based, maybe they were.)

Does anybody have any details on the devices themselves?

If you have a look at the first link in the text, it will take you to the full "e-Trash Transparency" report (http://www.ban.org/trash-transparency). When you download the 'Report', on page 105 it describes, in detail, the methodology used.

Extracts from the report: "In order to determine and procure the best equipment for the e-Trash Transparency Project, BAN tested several different subscription-based tracking systems. Based on the findings, it was determined that BAN’s case scenario was better served by a customized solution, but one that made use of “off-the-shelf” GSM/GPRS tracking hardware." Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ban-reports/Trash+Transparency/Disc...

"The combined cost of a single tracker, external battery, the SIM card, the M2M service rates package was approximately $175 (including shipping and taxes). The project, funded in large part by a grant from the Body Shop Foundation, included the purchase of over 200 trackers."

"Free and open source software called OpenGTS was used to collect and display data in a user-friendly manner...software included integration with Google Maps"

"The trackers that were used usually had at least a 9-month battery life, with some trackers still communicating after 12 months. The battery life varies depending on many factors including signal strength, temperature and sleep mode settings. Prolonged battery life is primarily attributed to the tracker possessing a sleep mode function, which allows the device to hibernate in a power-saving mode for a preset time. Typically, each tracker was set to “wake up” every 24 hours, calculate its position based on the satellite signals it received, send the data to BAN’s server via local GSM networks and then reenter sleep mode function."

> Prolonged battery life is primarily attributed to the tracker possessing a sleep mode function, which allows the device to hibernate in a power-saving mode for a preset time.

It would be cool if the time between wakeups could increase dramatically towards the end of the life of the battery. Or only wake up when temperature conditions are favourable toward having enough power to go through a cycle.

That was what I was looking for, thanks!

They have them for cats- there seems to be a race to develop the best one:

http://www.appcessories.co.uk/wheres-that-darn-cat-the-best-...

"Pawtrack needs to be able to be working in a compatible country, and in addition needs to have GPRS (2g) connectivity to allow live updates. The cat tracking collar will work in 171 countries, including USA/ Canada, the EU, UK as well as Australia and New Zealand. In addition, the cat GPS collar will transmit via home Wifi."

"The Pawtrack cat GPS collar takes about 4 hours to be fully recharged, and once charged will last up to 3 days once the Wifi modules and Intelligent Power Control settings are switched on."

Maybe you could wire in a larger battery.

I learned about this through a classmate doing a presentation on his work for this project (at MIT).

Iirc, they used modified android devices with larger batteries. The devices mostly slept and occasionally woke up to check in so they lasted awhile. I don't remember the specifics of how they communicated unfortunately. I'm somewhat surprised this article is out. When I heard about it (~1 year ago), I thought they weren't going to release the data because it technically acquired illegally with the tracking devices.

What laws did they violate? Just to disambiguate my tone, I don't doubt they could have violated laws, I'm just not very knowledgable in this area of the law and would like to learn more.

My understanding it was some sort of law related to the tracking feature, and possibly some sort of espionage related laws. This was a speaking class (6.UAT), so I don't know much about the details. Hopefully someone from the project shows up and can answer better.

My guess: shipping a lithium ion battery improperly.

Naw, lithium ion batteries have a high self-discharge rate. Not a good idea for this kind of project.

Since we're talking eWaste, my guess is a bunch of 6V alkaline batteries strung together in an old CRT monitor.

It's a good idea to use primary cells for this case, but did they?

They seem to be vague about the device and its batteries, but they do say they utilized an external battery.

With no mode of recharging, why bother with rechargeables?

Lithium ion batteries have the lowest rates of self-discharge.

Ask away!

Devices can either use cellular networks or satellite networks. The amount of data sent is extremely small, so bandwidth isn't an issue. The device can wake up, get a fix, store it, and then sleep again for a set duration of time. They're off the shelf, or you can build a custom device using an Ardunio board (or any microcontroller really).

Your endurance is limited only by the size of the battery you use (and if you use solar somehow, infinite).

Do you have a link to the off the shelf product they used for this project?

Details are here, on page 105. It was a custom GPS solution.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ban-reports/Trash+Transparency/Disc...

I don't know what they used for this project, but I have built similar things with the recently-released Particle Electron that I got on Kickstarter, though now I believe it's released widely. Works really great, I was using the Spark Core before, same company and concept but with wifi instead of cellular.

https://www.particle.io/cellular

Sorry about that! I'm not OP, but someone who has deployed similar tracking devices for marine-related purposes.

This issue is so much worse than people realize. Children in China and Bangladesh, climbing on MOUNTAINS of burning eWaste. Melting circuit boards for scraps of gold and silver. The US really needs to take the lead and ban eWaste exports. Not only would that create a need for recycling in America, but remove the potential for this stuff to pollute the world.

Some electronics are refurbished and resold, but not enough. Also, recycling materials is essential and discouraging our throwaway culture would help a lot too. I still use a phone that's 5 years old (and it works great) because I don't feel the desire to get a new one each year.

OMG, so much time spent trying to be good to Mother Earth and properly dispensing my e-waste is now in the trash can!

Is there any reputable place or organization where we can throw away our e-waste?

It depends quite a bit on where you are; here in Portland OR we have the fine option of taking it to Free Geek[1] where volunteers strip old PCs and build linux boxes which go to nonprofits (and the volunteers themselves), along with being resold (for the very best) at their thrift store, or recycled for materials (for the unusable stuff).

1: http://freegeek.org/

It's a cool story. They even visit the sites identified.

Your broken LCDs end up in giant boxes around some dude's pond in Asia. It doesn't even make sense.

In large enough amounts, everything in an LCD has value except for the bulbs, which contain mercury. To domestically and responsibly recycle them has 3 things that make it more expensive: 1) you need to disassemble the entire device to isolate the bulbs, with higher relative labor rates, 2) there is significant overhead in protective equipment, insurance, and regulatory compliance, and 3) you need to dispose of the mercury bulbs at a cost. Broken devices end up as a negative value item. The 'ponds' in HK with inexpensive labor, no PPE, and no concern for their environment can pull in several dollars a unit from the value of the circuit boards, steel, and plastic. You can fit thousands of LCDs in a 40-foot container.

This is not the first time BAN have investigated one of their customers.

http://www.resource-recycling.com/images/e-newsletterimages/...

Does this run afoul of any privacy laws?

Once you give your device to the e-waste program, it is no longer your property so I could imagine that this could be construed as illegal tracking somehow by the e-waste companies. There are also specific laws in many states regarding the GPS tracking of vehicles you do not own, so I'm pretty curious as to the legality of this.

I'm suprised that they are burning aĺl that plastic away. If they could place the electronics in a vacuum chamber and heat it up plastics and rubbers would decompose in lots of petrochemicals and natural gas that they could distilate and resell. Plus it would make the collection of materials far more safe and easy.

Plastics recycling is a VERY tough sell right now. The low price of oil makes the recovery values minimal.

At least now whenever people question why I hoard all my old electronics for as long as possible, and try to eke out as much value as humanly possible, I'll have an answer non techy people can relate with. If I don't do that, it will end up in Hong Kong giving people cancer.

This is an issue that will never be solved with the current economic system.

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