E-Wasted in Nigeria November 12, 2009
Posted by denmick in Uncategorized.trackback
By Gbemisola Olujobi
The next time you get a scam mail from Nigeria, don’t ask me how the scammer got your information, especially if you don’t know where your old PC is. Yes, the one you gave to a recycler or dropped off with a charity for a tax deduction after “erasing” your data. It turns out that erasing data or reformatting your hard disk does not completely eliminate data.
The Basel Action Network (BAN), a group that monitors the movement of electronic waste around the world, gathered hard-drive memory devices from old computers exported to Nigeria and had them analyzed by forensic data recovery experts. What did it find? It found personal e-mail correspondence, country reports, business letters, banking information, databases, personal letters discussing private legal matters, resumés, disciplinary letters and other cans of worms—all from computers that have been discarded by their owners.
BAN attests that “while many people assume that recyclers will clean their hard drives of data before sending them to reuse facilities, many of the hard drives recovered from computers in Lagos contained a great deal of confidential information.”
About 20 million computers are discarded in the United States annually. The federal government alone disposes of 10,000 computers weekly. The advent of flat-screen monitors and digital technology in televisions and advancements in practically every type of consumer electronics device certainly translates into an increase in e-waste generation.
The Basel Action Network investigated Nigeria’s e-waste situation and detailed its findings in a shocking report. “We saw people using e-waste to fill in swamps. Whenever the piles got too high, they would torch them. Residents complained about breathing the fumes. We saw kids roaming barefoot over this material, not to mention chicken and goats, which wind up in the local diet.”
According to the report, materials at the dump are a dangerous mix of toxic ash, broken CRT glass, dead animals, medical wastes, used chemical containers and food scraps, which creates conditions for contamination and infection.
BAN investigators attest that Lagos residents complain that they constantly breathe in fumes from these fires. Most of them do not know that they are faced with any danger from inhaling these highly hazardous emissions of brominated and chlorinated dioxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metal emissions.
BAN warns that as gruesome as the findings are, they may represent only the tip of the iceberg. Because there is virtually no data concerning the global e-waste trade, the components of e-waste are usually shrouded in mystery. So no one knows for sure what else may be in the mix.
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Just when you thought you were being a good citizen of Earth and recycling properly stuff like this comes along and makes you rethink things a bit.
Think more local for your recycling, do you know that with some craftiness you can turn your old PC into a planter? A jig saw to the top and voila! instant potted plant holder.
Or how about this, a laptop painted bright colors and hung on the wall as art?
No? well you could buy less new stuff to keep the old stuff out of the landfill or recycle pile?
We generate enough waste as a species to bury ourselves in garbage 10 times over, doggone Capitalism.
I wonder if Socialism would have waste issues?
I’m very happy about this development…
I know it’s just one small step, but…
I contacted 350.org about my idea using the GOOGLE home page graphics for promoting awareness about climate change.
This morning I had an email from a 350.org staffer named Will Bates, who said he thought it was a great idea and that they’d pass it on to GOOGLE — he said they have a “contact” there.
Coolbeans!
How about this garbage:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Don’t you just love ‘conditional’ religion?
Send the Pope a nasty-gram!
Yes, some versins of socialism have had serious waste issues; USSR. But Russia still does. I don’t think of China as socialist, exactly but they have horrendeous waste issues.
I always thought they were Communists both?
I just returned from a walk…to see I got an email from FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, who I also contacted about the GOOGLE idea.
Dave Hirsch @ foe.org likes it, too.
Gee, I wish politicians would pay as much attention to constituent ideas as activists do!
Send the Pope a nasty-gram!
The current pope is marching majestically back to the Crusades.
E-wasted again in E-Margarittaville..
Micki, I’m really glad your plan is being recognized especially with folks on the ‘inside’ of the almighty Googles, since ES is sequestered in a undisclosed location, someone within needs to tap his shoulder and say hey!
Chances are he will step up once the idea hits his desk,
*fingers crossed*.
Thanks, Den.
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. Even if GOOGLE doesn’t use the idea leading up to the Climate Conference, they can certainly utilize it another time.
BTW, we have a friend in the legal department at Google — she’s out of her office until November 18, but maybe we’ll hear from her when she returns.
Isn’t it funny, until this morning I hadn’t thought about contacting Rose. Duh!
Keyboard activism for Chris Dodd:
Dear Den,
This week I unveiled a wide-ranging overhaul of our financial system, restoring accountability and responsibility to give Americans the confidence that the system works for and protects them — not powerful Wall Street special interests.
This is an ambitious proposal. It goes further than others have proposed. But I know that if we want to prevent another economic collapse, we need to transform the way we regulate our financial sector.
Here is a brief summary of what my bill will do:
* Creates the Consumer Financial Protection Agency: Creates an independent watchdog to protect American consumers from fraud and abuse and ensure they get the clear, accurate information from credit card companies, mortgage companies and banks.
* Ends Too Big to Fail: Prevents excessively large or complex financial companies from being capable of bringing down the economy.
* Protects Against Systemic Risks: Creates an independent council of regulators to identify and address systemic risks posed by large, complex companies, products, and activities before they threaten the stability of the financial system.
* Creates a Single Independent Federal Bank Regulator: Eliminates the convoluted system of duplicative federal bank regulators increasing accountability and ending unnecessary overlap, conflicting regulation, and “charter shopping.”
* Reforms Executive Compensation and Corporate Governance: Provides shareholders with a say on pay and corporate affairs with a non-binding vote on executive compensation and director nominations.
* Closes Loopholes in Regulation: Eliminates loopholes that allow risky and abusive practices to go on unnoticed and unregulated.
* Protects Investors: Provides tough new rules for transparency and accountability from investment advisors, financial brokers and credit rating agencies — holding them accountable while protecting investors and businesses.
* Enforces Regulations on the Books: Strengthens oversight and empowers regulators to aggressively pursue financial fraud, conflicts of interest and manipulation of the system that benefits special interests at the expense of American families and businesses.
Like I said — it’s ambitious. And that means I’m going to need your support to help it pass.
Will you sign on today as a citizen co-sponsor of my overhaul bill? There is no better way to help than with a massive show of public support.
Click here to help me pass a strong overhaul of our nation’s financial sector.
Together, we can build a new foundation for our financial sector, one in which all Americans can place their confidence.
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Chris
It takes a heap of heaping to make a heap a heap.
Bill and I just received this email from Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC):
Last night, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs announced his departure from the network. As you know, we’ve been highly critical of Dobbs because he has used his platform to spread myths and propaganda — poisoning the debate over immigration reform and inciting fear and hate against Latinos.
The SPLC was one of the first groups to bring public attention to Dobbs’ use of false information provided by racist hate groups.
With your support, we exposed his wildly inaccurate reporting about immigrants — such as his insistence that immigrants had brought thousands of new cases of leprosy to the United States during a recent three-year period.
And we condemned his reliance on the Federation for American Immigration Reform as an authority on immigration issues. This is an organization we have named a hate group with longtime ties to white supremacists.
This past July, we called on CNN executives to fire Dobbs after he relentlessly promoted the racist and utterly baseless idea that President Obama is not a native-born American citizen. Soon thereafter, a number of other organizations joined our call.
Immigration reform is an important and complex issue, one that should be debated honestly. We hope that Dobbs’ resignation sends a message to other commentators that the airwaves shouldn’t be used to vent extremist rhetoric and fan the flames of hate. Doing so has serious and sometimes violent consequences, as illustrated by the rise in hate crimes against Latinos and the unprecedented number of threats against Obama.
We are committed to exposing those who disseminate misinformation that foments hate. Together, we took a stand, and our actions made a difference. Thank you for everything you do to combat bigotry and intolerance.
Thank you for your support,
J. Richard Cohen
President, Southern Poverty Law Center
+++++++++++
Maybe he is going to Faux News….on the other hand….
He is against Illegal immigration like most Americans are. Come here in the lawful way and most Americans have no problem with it. Again more misinformation by the leftist media propaganda machine.
You’re looking at SPLC’s work through a very, very narrow (and narrow-minded) lens.
SPLC does not engage in disseminating misinformation.
They all do. They obviously have here. Did they mention “illegal.” That is where they are misinforming.
Global cooling=global warming=global climate change. Liberal=moderate=progressive. Changing names to lie to yourselves about who you are is so transparent it isn’t even funny anymore. As for the former, it is still weather, whether you believe you can do anything about it, which you can’t.
Oh dear. Climate change is an attempt to communicate that there is more to it than just temperature change.
Liberal, moderate and progressive all refer to different political stances; you could learn about those.
Actually, climate is not just wether; you could learn about that as well.
Climate is not just wether?
*****************
cli·mate (klmt)
n.
1. The meteorological conditions, including temperature, precipitation, and wind, that characteristically prevail in a particular region.
2. A region of the earth having particular meteorological conditions: lives in a cold climate.
****************
Go ahead and change the meaning all you want, including the spelling, it is still weather.
ACORN’S for brains?
*******************
Representatives for ACORN sued the federal government Thursday morning in an attempt to regain the millions of dollars in funding the community organizing group lost after filmmakers videotaped its workers offering advice on how to commit tax fraud and various other felonies. The suit charges Congress with violating the Constitution when it passed legislation in September that specifically targeted ACORN to lose federal housing, education and transportation funds.
*********************
Not surprising seeing who their most famous graduate of community organizing is. Of course Obama probably thinks ACORN is in there if you just scramble all the letters just right.
tytandanmar — You are inconsistent. First you want small government, maybe none at all AFAIK. Now you want some g’vment agency to document everybody so there aren’t any “illegals”.
Just big g’vment when you want it?
Is it against the law to enter this country illegally? It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that those who come here do so legally. Big, small gov’t it doesn’t matter. Unfortunately we do have government that doesn’t know what they hell they are doing, so all hopey and changey the diapers is all down the crapper.
I very much doubt there was any such law for the majority of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_American#Immigration_to_America
Certainly wasn’t for the majority of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American
This is 2009 Dr. B. We do not have an open border policy. But we might as well since government is not enforcing the policy to begin with.
tytandanmar — Not just weather.
climate — A summary of mean weather conditions over a time period, usually based on thirty years of records. Climates are largely determined by location with respect to land- and sea-masses, to large-scale patterns in the general circulation of the atmosphere, latitude, altitude, and to local geographical features.
Note that WMO requirement of at least 30 years. That makes it not weather.
It is spring, summer, winter and fall. It has been a part of life here on earth since its’ beginning. It only became global climate change when a bunch of anti-capitalist liberals and grant grubbing scientists deemed it so. Put your money where your mouth is Dr. B. Challenge Al Gore to go live in a cave, give up his carbon creating luxeries and you will do the same. If your dear leader is not willing to do it, you should at least try, you know sacrifice for the good of humanity. That goes for all liberal do-gooders for others but not for me types. Robert Kennedy Jr is another that comes to mind. One live brain cell away from being a potted plant. Alse Unkle Keg Kennedy. All for wind turbines but god forbid they be anywhere the Kennedy compound. Walter Cronkite protested as well. You are in good company.
What a huge pile of complete mis- and dis-information! Here are the decadal averages from the HadCRUTv3 global temperature product:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/10yave.jpg
Note the long term trend is up, way up.
That’s going to become quite, quite bad for agriculture and other aspects of a decent life.
Go ahead and quote all the mumbo jumbo you want. Man does not affect climate and man can do nothing to change climate. If you think you can, be the first to give it all up and see who folllows you. If nobody does, at least you will know you are doing the right thing, right?
tytandanmar wrote “We do not have an open border policy.” Yup. So instead e have big g’vment; an immegration service and a border guard.
Which was my point: you seem to be in favor of big g’vment…
Acorn Hussein Obama..mmm..mmm.mmm.
Not the kind of big government this nut is advocating.
Beaver urinates on reporter:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5628730n
Reminds me of the dirtiest thing said on TV in the early days:
June Cleaver, “Ward, don’t be so hard on the Beaver.”
tytandanmar — You are dead wrong!
Read climatologist W.F. Ruddiman’s popular Plows, Plagues and Petroleum to discover that humans have been affecting climate for a very long time.
Or not. After all, in your world it seems that Ignorance is Strength.
If you believe Dr. B. then why are you still living? If “we” are the cause, then why don’t “we” just disappear? It is because “we” know it is balony. If the “we” are correct, then why is not every one of the “we” adopting the life of the Amish? The “we” might praise their lifestyle, but the “we” couldn’t live that way, especially when you toss the religion part of the equation into it. The “we” is the problem but not one of the “we” is brave enough to stick the proverbial toe in the water to test how cold it is before everyone can jump in. And nobody is believing the water is too cold or too warm because everybody knows there is not a thing “we”can do about it. Enjoy your life in the bubble, the rest of the world will do just fine.
Overheard at the Afghanistan War strategy meeting chaired by Acorn Obama:
Um…hmm, um…hmm, um….um…..um….lets um talk um more um about this um thing um when I get um back from um Asia.
Man WP is FUBAR! replies likely to end up anywhere.
See where this one goes…
Huh, it worked that time.
BEER THIRTY!
I reply here to reply about the first reply.
I reply here to second the beer:30!
I reply here to comment about the post.
Looks like you can have a comment then a reply and one reply to the first reply then the thread ends. If you want to stay within the original comment, you have to reply to the last reply available within the comment or to the original comment itself.
I think my brain just farted.
tytandanmar — I agree with your last sentence.
Stealing the reply to the reply.
Theres one more left
Just be glad you weren’t around to smell it. But then again, somebody will invent the “scratch and sniff” monitor someday. Don’t think I would go for that!
Call 911!
(Regarding the expulsion of toxic brain gas)
Sheesh!
There was once a song that went “somebody call 911, emergency at 13 honky tonk lane.” Could have been a big hit or just a local band original but I liked it.
Sleep-O-clock
Shuffle on Lido!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIu0jQ5TaRQ&feature=related
I try to listen to this song daily. Great sound and great singers.
Whoops. Meant to put that one here!
This one too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIu0jQ5TaRQ&feature=related
Boz!
This one too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIu0jQ5TaRQ&feature=related
Boz!
One of my all time favorite songs by my fourth favorite all time female songwriter.
First: Carole King
Second: Bonnie Rait
Third: Carly Simon
Fourth: Joni Mitchell
Help me!
It never ceases to amaze me that there are masses of people who are so malleable that they are willing to abdicate the potential power of their own thinking to the power of the right-wing message manipulators. They tune in everyday to find out what they’re supposed to think.
Ty is one of them. He’s got something much worse than swine flu — he’s been bitten by another contagious disease. The disease that exists in an environment that lacks reasoned argument, or evidence, or science. He bases his arguments on the hyperbolic invective of the right-wing deniers. Ty’s sphere is, unfortunately, growing with lightning speed.
But, one thing about Ty that doesn’t fit the other denialists — most of the climate change deniers are over 65. Is Ty going to disappoint his four young sons — and his allegedly “liberal” wife? Is he “old” before his time? But, I digress….
Climate change deniers are spitting out books, TeeVee interviews, radio shows, etc. that have no basis in science. They don’t care about peer-reviewed studies, science, or other evidentiary-based theses.
I think people with low self-esteem gravitate towards the right-wing world view on climate change denial. They shore up their self-esteem by lining up with the denialists because consuming, polluting, feeling entitled to “doing what I want and no government is going to tell me otherwise” gives them a sense of power and self-worth.
As the science is hardening, it is fueling the invective of the denialists. And, boy, are they vocal. Willfully ignorant, but vocal.
No low self esteem here Micki but I respect your opinion. And my allegedly “liberal” wife refused me to put up a Bush 43 sign in my yard even when I offered to buy a Kerry sign to stick up right beside it.
Regarding the science, if it is so hardening, why are the true believers not living it? You must do some real convincing before anyone will take it for the balony that it is.
What came first the brain or the gas?
The brain first then the gas. There has to be someting to fill that empty space in the skull when the brain begins to deteriorate.
Now, back to Joni!
I don’t like Canadian health care but they have produced some of my favorite entertainers: Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Stephen Stills, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, and Rush.
Regarding the science, if it is so hardening, why are the true believers not living it?
No, you give me some evidence that people who believe that anthropogenic activity is a contributor to climate change have not made changes in their lives. (And, no bullshit about Al Gore having a utility bill higher than then Vegas Strip — that’s so ridiculous.)
In my circle of friends and acquaintances, I can cite dozens of people who have made substantial changes — each small step matters, Ty.
What steps have you taken for your sons and your wife? And your community?
I haven’t done anything micki. Because I don’t believe in it for one and I don’t see anyone who is advocating for it changing one aspect of their life to prevent something thay cannot do anything about. Al Gore buys carbon credits from a company he owns. Does this mean he is doing anything when he continues to live the same lifestyle he does? Ask Al to invest in Micki’s carbon credit company. See how far that gets you.
And now enjoy: no carbon credit buying for this front row seat!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmsLQFqdiQE
If I could change the world.
Come on Micki, lets give them Something to Talk About!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmsLQFqdiQE
I have a soft place in my heart for a woman who can play guitar better than I can an sing better to boot!
Whoops!
Here goes.