World Reuse, Repair and Recycling Association
The World Reuse, Repair and Recycling Association (WR3A) is a business consortium dedicated to the reform of the trade of e-waste. The WR3A is inspired by fair trade organizations.
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[edit] History
WR3A is a Fair Trade association established to improve the export markets for surplus electronics and e-waste. WR3A was established in 2006 following a visit to China by a group including a USA electronics recycler (American Retroworks Inc.), a University of California Davis recycling program director, and a Seattle recycler with a zero-export policy. The group visited three of China's semi knock down factories. Those factories purchased USA computer monitors which still have functional CRTs. The CRTs are knocked down to the bare tube, which is inserted into a new TV or monitor case, complete with new tuner board, etc. WR3A founders observed that the junk CRTs imported into China's Guiyu province were leftovers of functional CRTs purchased by the factories. While the Chinese government, which invested and owns new CRT manufacturing factories, shut many of these operations down as gray market activities in 2006, many of the assembly factories were relocated to other countries.
WR3A proposed to form a coalition of USA companies to export only the good CRT monitors directly to the reuse factories, removing imploded, damaged, screen-burned, older, or non-compliant raster (e.g. Trinitron) CRTs from loads destined for CRT factories[1]. The USA companies which remove and recycle the bad 1/3 of CRTs would benefit from higher prices, and the Chinese factories would bypass the sorting villages such as Guiyu. The WR3A was swamped by orders from Asian factories that year.[2]
The Chinese government, which took over most of the new CRT manufacturing capacity worldwide in the 1990s[3], opposed the import of used CRTs. Many of the factory owners, relocated their businesses in 2006 and 2007 to countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Others relocated their used monitor sourcing operations only to Hong Kong and Vietnam, trucking the CRTs overland to Chinese factories. The USA has its own factory, Video Display Corp of Tucker, Georgia.[4]
The organization is pursuing a strategy of increasing used electronics exports through fair trade agreements, under the principle that if used computer exports are outlawed, only outlaws will export used computers.
[edit] Recent activities
The WR3A was contracted as a consultant to the US Environmental Protection Agency for its July 2008 publication Electronic Waste Management in the United States.[5]
In January 2009, the organization presented statistics and a film at the Keynote Address of the CES 2009 in Las Vegas.[6] The statistics demonstrated that the rate of growth of internet access is much higher in countries with very low incomes. It is logically unlikely that this growth can be achieved with new computers. The WR3A also presented film of the reuse and refurbishing operations which demonstrate proper recycling practices and best available practices in these ten countries.[7]
On May 15, 2009, National Public Radio's (NPR) program Living On Earth profiled one of WR3A's members - a women's cooperative doing TV repair and recycling in Mexico.[8]
On July 30, 2010, Discovery News presented an analysis contrasting WR3A's "fair trade" engagement approach with the Basel Action Network's (BAN) "trade restriction" approach, and abstained from choosing sides.[9]
In October, 2010, WR3A announced a partnership with Basel Action Network to reduce unnecessary breakage and destruction of working computer monitors in California, under California SB20 laws. This followed a report critical of California "cancellation" policies published in the Sacramento Bee on July 19, 2010. [10]
In March, 2011. WR3A was profiled in Motherboard.tv, for the organization's case that reduced exports of used electronics by "stewards" was having unintended consequences. [11]
In May, 2011, WR3A was interviewed as part of an "e-waste" by German news magazine ZDF.Kultur [1], which investigated the assumptions that African imports were "primitive" and linked exports to Egypt's Green Revolution.
[edit] References
- ^ Recycling Today, February 2005
- ^ http://recyclingtoday.texterity.com/recyclingtoday/200504/?pg=44
- ^ The Economist, February 25, 1989
- ^ http://www.videodisplay.com
- ^ "Waste Management in the United States" (pdf). Office of Solid Waste, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. July 2008. http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/docs/app-1.pdf. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
- ^ Video of CES 2009 Keynote Address broken link?
- ^ WR3A film
- ^ "On Their Own Terms" (NPR Transcript). 2009-05-15. http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=09-P13-00020#feature7. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
- ^ "Revenge of the TV Monitor Zombies". Discovery Communications. 30 July 2010. http://news.discovery.com/tech/revenge-of-the-tv-monitor-zombies.html. Retrieved 25 September 2010.
- ^ "Mexican Town Turns U.S. E-Waste into Treasure". sacbee.com. 2010-07-18. http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/18/2897620/mexican-town-turns-us-e-waste.html.
- ^ http://www.motherboard.tv/2011/3/26/e-waste-recycling-exports-are-good
