Exporting used PCs to Africa: baby or bathwater?->
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retroworks
retroworks writes "According to UK MailOnline's article The Dirty Secret of Your NHS, computers donated to Africa are typically used in place of machetes to beat up poor children. The BBC does another story, and a fair one, Ghana's Growing E-Waste Trade , on the junk computers from rich countries found on the ground in Africa (Ghana). But all of the footage is of the junk PCs, there is no film of any repaired or good computers. There have been a dozen stories now about the bad apples. But there have to have been good ones, too, to cover the costs of shipping. The ones in the Mail story actually look decent. Can anyone find balanced coverage of used computer exports, many of which provide affordable technology to poor people? Organizations like Greenpeace and Basel Action Network are promoting electronics recyclers with zero-export policies. One organization, the World Reuse Repair and Recycling Association WR3A.org is promoting a "Fair Trade Coffee" approach to moderate the number of bad computers exported, and has
a WR3A youtube film showing both sides of the story. A ban on exports leaves Africa with a choice of 1)spending a year's income on a new PC, 2) buying mixed loads of computers from undercapitalized recyclers, or 3) remaining barefoot and pregnant. And our choice seems to be to donate a decent computer mixed with someone else's junk, or to grind it up in a perverse tribute to Vance Packard, as "obsolescence in hindsight"."
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Exporting used PCs to Africa: baby or bathwater? More Login
Exporting used PCs to Africa: baby or bathwater?