U.N. To Tackle Growing "E-Waste" Menace

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20061127/tc_cmp/196500017

By Reuters
Sun Nov 26, 6:36 AM ET

NAIROBI, Nov 26 - Western donations of old computers, mobile phones and televisions could be toxic "hand-me-downs" posing a hazard to the environment of poor countries, a major U.N. conference will hear this week.

Delegations from some 120 nations meeting for five days of talks in Kenya will focus on the estimated 20-50 million tonnes of so-called "e-waste" generated globally each year, much of it then shipped to the developing world.

There's a very simple solution, you officious, corrupt pricks: we'll simply cease sending our old stuff to third-world countries.

"We want developing countries to receive usable items," Sachiko Kuwabara Yamamoto, head of the Basel Convention which monitors hazardous waste, told a news conference on Sunday.

"Of course, who pays for this is a big issue," she said.

Aha! As usual with the U.N., it's about "who pays". So that as many U.N. bureaucrats and their cronies as possible can get a "taste".

Western consumers who donate old equipment to poor nations, especially in Africa, could be adding to a multitude of environmental problems there, officials say.

"...could be adding..."? So you bastards aren't even sure about "environmental problems", but you're already convinced that someone should pay for it. Speaking of which...how's that Kyoto Protocol thing working out for you?

One study last year in Nigeria said about 500 containers of secondhand electronics arrived at Lagos seaport every month.

But dealers said as much as three-quarters of the PCs, televisions and phones inside were "junk" -- so obsolete they could not be repaired. Many were burned at open-air dumps, releasing toxic fumes and leaching chemicals like barium, mercury and brominated flame retardants into surrounding soils.

Why are developed, successful nations being held accountable for (alleged) irresponsible disposal of these items in third-world shitholes over which they have no control? Oh...it's because first-world countries have money and should feel guilty about it. They can then assuage that guilt by forking large quantities of money to the U.N. so that about 90% or so can be skimmed by their officials. You know...like that whole "Oil For Food" business.

TIP OF ICEBERG

Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana said the same thing was happening at dumps around his capital city Nairobi.

"If you go there you will see the other side of these donations," he said. "And this problem is on the increase."

As stated earlier, there's a very simple way to fix the problem; you get nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Say "buh bye" to the toxic fumes, barium, mercury and brominated flame retardants. Simple and effective.

And you can also say "buh bye" to all of the technology that your miserable countries cannot afford to purchase new from overseas, much less design and manufacture for yourselves. This will help ensure that your shithole fiefdoms fall even further behind the developed world and allow you to play for additional sympathy.

On the table at this week's meeting are proposals to make manufacturers -- including some of the world's top computer companies -- take more responsibility for their products, from the design stage through the supply chain to final disposal.

Could these assholes be any more blatant? Successful capitalistic endeavors like Dell, HP, Gateway, Toshiba, Apple, Sony, et.al. have deep pockets. And that's just not fair to destitute, corrupt, despotic, tyrannical countries, is it?

The U.N. Environment Programme estimates that some 14-20 million PCs are thrown out each year in the United States alone.

Activists say if manufacturers had to pay recycling costs, they would create less toxic, longer-life products.

Fuck recycling; with the exception of aluminum cans, it's a giant scam. The proof of this is very simple: aluminum cans are the only "recycleable" which anyone will actually pay cash for.

If other sectors were profitable, recycling companies would also pay you for paper, plastics, glass, etc. But they don't, because there is no savings in recycling them. At least not without billions of dollars in taxpayers' money subsidizing the whole shebang.

As an example of Basel's work with industry, Yamamoto hailed a four-year partnership with 12 mobile phone manufacturers including Vodafone, Nokia and Sony Ericsson to develop strategies for the recycling and re-use of the more than 600 million phones now sold worldwide every year.

I don't have a problem if private companies voluntarily want to investigate methods for recycling and re-use of phones (or anything else). But I have a huge problem if this is forced upon them. Particularly if it involves the U.N., as I believe they are one of the most foully corrupt and despicable organizations on the planet.

As well as "e-waste", the meeting will also consider what to do with thousands of aircraft and ships expected to go out of service and be scrapped before the end of the decade.

I'm sure this "consideration" will primarily involve methods for extorting money and lining pockets.

It will also focus on strengthening nations' obligatory reporting on waste shipments thought to be have increased more than four-fold around the world in the last decade. Only about 70 percent of Basel signatory nations currently file reports.

"You can only manage what you can measure," Yamamoto said. "The reporting we have at the moment is really just the tip of an iceberg."

Too bad this alleged "iceberg" is unlikely to sink the United Nations like the friggin' Titanic. Personally, I'd love to watch Secretary General Coughing Anus' frozen cadaver sink into the depths of the North Sea.