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Comment by Rinzler89 | Hacker News Reader

>People should understand that proper clean electronic waste recycling does exist. [..] This is more a portrayal of extreme poverty than anything.

That like saying "people should understand that eating cake is also an option, you don't have to eat dirt".

Because then answer me why most e-waste dumping gets shipped off to those impoverished countries instead of being processed locally using the "cheap and clean" ways you mention, directly in the rich western nations who are buying all those electronics in the first place.

Throwing the blame back on the poor countries getting exploited by corporate interest of rich western countries doing greenwashing, feels like gaslighting.

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> Throwing the blame back on the poor countries getting exploited by corporate interest of rich western countries doing greenwashing

That's not what the person you're replying to said at all:

> we need to ensure that electronic waste doesn't end up being dumped on random impoverished towns in Africa

The point is that recycling isn't the problem, it's the companies who direct the waste. Nobody is blaming the third world countries for these problems. Holding these examples of terrible conditions up as evidence that recycling doesn't work just gives recycling a bad reputation rather than showing the irresponsibility of the companies that put the waste there in the first place. Neither the producers nor the recipients of the waste decided for it to be this way, it's the people in the middle.

I cannot find any source that shows e-waste being primarily sent to third world countries. It looks like it mostly goes to India and China, if not processed locally.

And at least in India it doesn't look like a burning hell hole of toxic waste.[1]

[1]https://namoewaste.com/what-we-do/

> Having long invaded Asia (Russia, India, China, etc.), e-waste from Europe and the United States is arriving in extensive quantities in the ports of West African countries such as Ghana, in violation of international treaties.

This is from the first link[1] in the npr article. It doesn't say that it is the primary destination but does say that it is high.

1. https://www.fondationcarmignac.com/en/ANAS-AREMEYAW-ANAS-MUN...

"extensive quantities" is a meaningless term.

If we use the numbers from the article (250k tons) and from the site your provided (62 million tons), "extensive quantities" is 0.4% of e-waste.

I'm speculating here, but its possibly because labor in the USA is too expensive to make this type of work economical, even if we have the tools. Most of the time I would repair things when they break but the hourly rate of repair shops is more expensive than a replacement. Overseas they have cheap labor but apparently not the tools. It seems like an opportunity for a charity to send some of these tools to Ghana along with each shipment of e-waste.

I get money back when I trade in my phone. Give me back less. It's not like I want a box of old devices that I don't need or use, and I suspect most other folks would feel the same. Take some of that money and put it towards recycling the devices properly.

yeah, it's interesting seeing some vintage used parts show up for sale from China on eBay from refurbishers (e.g. a SODIMM for a 20 year old laptop), but not a thing from Ghana.

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