Hopefully non-Facebook viewers can see the CarmaFi LIVE from Bright TV in Thailand, I am looking for other hosts (Youtube).
This is fascinating because it's very rare to have 60 minutes of live video of an Asian E-waste recycling and refurbishing facility. I was aware that Thailand has become the largest buyer of desktop LCDs, and as my company expands its own USA flat TV recycling operation, I confess I was worried this would be our competition.
https://www.facebook.com/BrightTV20/videos/2143410722606242/
Wow. I see things that look really bad. I see things that look really good. I see modern air separation equipment, and I see Asian women sorting things on the table, and men sorting things on the floor. Lots of green circuit boards. I don't see any smoke or acid (promised by BAN). I see aluminum heat sinks being sorted for reuse. I see downdraft tables where chips are being pulled and sorted from circuit boards for reuse. I see 50 tubs with 50 different grades of copper.
Basel Action Network has pronounced judgement, of course. And I have to reserve judgement - even BAN isn't wrong all of the time. But the do make it hard to see people for what they can do, positively, when they introduce them as "primitives" and "polluters". I am just watching this video for the first time, and hope to learn what these processes are. My hunch is that it is environmentally safer than mining, refining, and new manufacturing. But that could be my own bias.
Bias is not all bad. My pre-disposition is largely framed by my knowledge of the complete history of electronic displays, from blinking-lights to tab cards to VGA, SVGA, digital, etc. I learned most of this from a guy who arrived as a child in Tawain during Mao's takeover of PRC, who wore rice sacks as clothes, but went to engineering school in Taipei... where he developed the first-ever display of Chinese characters on a CRT electron gun screen.
This is fascinating because it's very rare to have 60 minutes of live video of an Asian E-waste recycling and refurbishing facility. I was aware that Thailand has become the largest buyer of desktop LCDs, and as my company expands its own USA flat TV recycling operation, I confess I was worried this would be our competition.
https://www.facebook.com/BrightTV20/videos/2143410722606242/
Wow. I see things that look really bad. I see things that look really good. I see modern air separation equipment, and I see Asian women sorting things on the table, and men sorting things on the floor. Lots of green circuit boards. I don't see any smoke or acid (promised by BAN). I see aluminum heat sinks being sorted for reuse. I see downdraft tables where chips are being pulled and sorted from circuit boards for reuse. I see 50 tubs with 50 different grades of copper.
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| The dreaded aluminum heat sink sorting table |
Basel Action Network has pronounced judgement, of course. And I have to reserve judgement - even BAN isn't wrong all of the time. But the do make it hard to see people for what they can do, positively, when they introduce them as "primitives" and "polluters". I am just watching this video for the first time, and hope to learn what these processes are. My hunch is that it is environmentally safer than mining, refining, and new manufacturing. But that could be my own bias.
Bias is not all bad. My pre-disposition is largely framed by my knowledge of the complete history of electronic displays, from blinking-lights to tab cards to VGA, SVGA, digital, etc. I learned most of this from a guy who arrived as a child in Tawain during Mao's takeover of PRC, who wore rice sacks as clothes, but went to engineering school in Taipei... where he developed the first-ever display of Chinese characters on a CRT electron gun screen.
