88% of Electronics Exports Reused, Not Dumped

retroworks writes "Greenercomputing.com staff covered a study which sheds more light on the controversial practice of exporting used computer equipment overseas. University of Arizona professors Ramzy Kahhat and Eric Williams newly published research, Product or Waste? Importation and End-of-Life Processing of Computers in Peru apparently confirms what WR3A.org says in the Video 'Fair Trade Recycling'. Namely, that most of the exports of used computers imported by buyers overseas (88%) are really for reuse and repair. Otherwise, people would not pay to import them. This bolsters pro-export arguments made in a scholarly article by Charles Schmidt of NIH in 2006. Perhaps what is needed to stem e-waste pollution is not a ban on exports, but for more people to export, so that buyers have more choice of (ethical) suppliers. Put another way: If used computer exports are outlawed, only outlaws will export used computers."

Mexico

[mrmeval]

Has pretty strict rules on importing some items. When I worked for an electronics shop repairing TVs in the 90s we sold all of our scrap TVs to a Hispanic gentleman who would take them to Mexico and strip them of usable parts then sell them. He could do this with scrap televisions but could not do it with any part for a computer as those were even more restricted.

Re:makes sense to me

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In many cases it goes even further than that. In large deployments, you get to the point where(because of a combination of cost of employee downtime, cost of IT tech time, cost of parts/replacements[if you are trying to maintain a consistent system across an organization, rather than merely equivalent specs, these often don't get much cheaper over time]) it becomes attractive to just toss all the machines of a given age, in case they break. This is one of the attractions behind a 3 year or 5 year automatic replacement cycle.

That leaves you with gigantic piles of machines that aren't broken at all, just no longer a good organizational fit.

Truer than you realize

[localroger]

I use a nearly 10 year old PC at work as my disposable net-connected computer (we have an air gap between our real network and the internets). It's a 333 MHz P2 and running Win2K and FireFox it runs fine, as long as I don't try to use it to watch video. I use it for all of my at-work email, lots of word processing, and viewing and printing PDF's. I also use it to run circuit board design software so I can submit the images over the net to producers.

Re:makes sense to me

[TheRaven64]

I can't imagine these are actually getting "repaired" insomuch that they are likely taking good parts from many broken machines and making good ones from them.

Probably mostly true, although I've seen people throw away 'broken' computers where the only problem was that Windows was infected with too much spyware. I've also seen machines where one of the motherboard cables has come loose, or the PSU has blown a fuse, being discarded as not worth the effort of fixing. These machines are easy to repair, if you can be bothered.

ASU not UofA

[bbk]

Arizona has two universities, the Tucson based University of Arizona (UofA), which has been around for much longer than the Tempe based Arizona State University (ASU). This article was written by people at latter, not the former, so the post attribution is incorrect.

Re:makes sense to me

[JWSmythe]

Creative Recycling

    http://crserecycling.com/ [crserecycling.com]

    eBay seller ID: bargain_crh

    eBay store: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Bargain-Computer-Products [ebay.com]

Re:Ins And Outs

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a strong environmentalist

Please stop causing the manufacturing base of the world to move to Asia with your regulations, taxes and lawsuits. China doesn't care about the environment.

Re:Mexico

[rohan972]

What I am curious about is why a Spaniard is allowed to do so in Mexico. That's more curious than dubious restrictions on import.

What I am curious about is why you bring this up when he didn't mention a Spaniard.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Hispanic [reference.com]

Re:Lots of usable tech hitting the dumpster....

[forkazoo]

GGP does have a point though. An 8 year old computer is still mostly capable of modern computing needs: surfing the internet, sending email, word processing, etc. On the other hand, a computer from 1991 was not quite as useful in 1999. That would be a 486 in the world of Pentium IIIs (well, IIIs were getting common by then anyway).

For a slightly more extreme comparison, imagine a ten year old computer today, and in 1995.
A ten year old computer would be, like you say, a PIII. 1 GHz for a round number. Not super speedy by modern standards, but stuff it full of RAM and you can do most office type things with it, even using fairly current software. The first machine I used to cut DV footage on was even slower than our 10 year old beast.

But, in 1995, a ten your old computer would basically have been a relic. A 640 k machine with a CGA card being compared to Pentiums running Windows 95. A 128k Mac up against a PowerMac. No real comparison at that point.

There are a couple of reasons why progress seemed so rapid at that point. A lot of technology already existed, and was well understood from high end machines by the 1990's. It just hadn't made it into common PC hardware. OF the things that PC companies did invent, everything was still so new that there was still a lot of low-hanging fruit. Also, transistor budgets were still low enough that it was possible to really exploit new fab process improvements because you could use a modestly sized design team. The market was also expanding very rapidly, so the amount of money that could be used for R+D was exploding in that period. The starting points were so primitive that every little improvement seemed to be huge.

Also, the lack of monoculture prior to about the mid-90's meant that you could try completely new shit. Some of it failed, but somebody always had some crazy idea to push things forward. Then, everybody got email and just needed to be able to open their MS Word attachments. Coming up with a revolutionary non-file-centric storage system is worthless if it can't store an MS Word file. Coming up with a new networking paradigm is useless if it means you can't get your email.

Re:Mexico

[Anonymous Coward]

That is/was an issue regarding tariffs and the market for repair parts. In the first place, import computing equipment (at the retail level) is subject to a 100% duty. In the second place, the market for computing equipment just isn't the same as it is here in the US.

Generic electronic equipment (televisions and such) are not subject to similarly high duties, especially if they are non-functional, and there is a much larger after market for televisions than computers.

The duties applied have less to do with environmental restrictions and more to do with the perception (by the Camera de Diputatos and the Mexican Senate) that computers in the hands of consumers are luxury items.

Re:What about copyright infringement on software?

[Orion Blastar]

Actually the older the software, the easier it is to make copies and put it on multiple machines. Once the software reaches online activation, it cannot be copied so easily without beating the activation scheme.

Anyway as it turns out Microsoft is giving away free downloads of MS-Word 5.5 for MS-DOS [downloadsquad.com] so that old systems can run it for free. The direct download link is here [microsoft.com] in EXE self extraction format. It is the Y2K fix for MS-Word for DOS 5.5 and under and released as a new version instead of a patch or update. Microsoft felt that releasing a full DOS version would be easier than update older versions of MS-Word for DOS going back to Word 1.0 and up to 5.5. So those still using DOS or looking for a DOS word processor can take advantage of MS-Word 5.5 for DOS for free.