I'm super glad to be here this is uh
this is something I've looked forward to
doing for a long time and I've talked to
a bunch of you already I'm working on a
second book actually called second hand
which I think the title explains itself
so that also explains why I'm here and
so Kyle's been nice enough to introduce
me to some of your folks and just teach
me a little bit more about what I fix
its joint but I've got a bunch of slides
and a bunch of stuff I want to tell you
about so I'm gonna just get right to it
this is a pretty standard looking
scrapyard in South China circa about
2008 the reason I ended up there I have
a lot of friends in the junk business in
South China I happen to be down there
for something not related to junk but
the guy who owns this place heard I was
there he called me up he says hey I've
got a new junkyard open I want to see it
and I said hey I have nothing going on
pick me up and so he said his BMW
limousine to pick me up and show us his
new junkyard cuz these guys make a lot
of money that's actually kind of fun
those are three helicopters then but
were shredded in LA and then they're
sorting the metals at his new yard so if
you've ever wanted to know what three
shredded helicopters look like there it
is so he takes me for a walk around the
yard and I see this big pile of cable
and and Chinese scrap yards are filled
with cable I think we all know that it's
difficult to recycle not impossible but
difficult to recycle and so I just
walked over and I thought that looks
interesting it is I got closer it got
more interesting Christmas tree lights
about two and a half tons of Christmas
tree lights and I had kind of a moment
there I'm I'm a journalist I'm looking
to sensationalize everything in anything
and it occurred to me as I was starting
to think about junkyard planet all
sensationalized Christmas tree lights so
what I wanted to do was find out what
happens to Christmas tree lights when
they're sent to South China Joe told me
oh he buys a lot of him and he sends
into factories but we had to go to
dinner we couldn't go to the factories
that process them so it became kind of a
quest of mine to find out how our
Christmas tree lights recycled in China
so that led me to this gentleman my
friend Johnson Zen Johnson is based in
Vancouver and what Johnson did around
2010-2011 he would spend about half the
year in rented cars driving around the
United States going scrappier - scrappy
- scrappy aren't buying stuff we
- putting into containers and shipping
it back to China and one of the things
he was known for buying was low-grade
copper wire including Christmas tree
lights so Johnson I got a call of
Johnson I said can you show me where
Christmas tree lights are recycled he
says why don't you come on the road with
me for a week and I'll take you around
I'll show you where I get him and then
I'll send you to China I was living in
China at that time and I'll send you
down to a place called Shi Zhai where
they recycle me said great so I went on
the road with Johnson buying scrap for a
week in his rented car and everywhere we
went we came across Christmas tree
lights this was actually outside of
Columbus Ohio
this was Indianapolis and this was North
Carolina there are hundreds of thousands
of tons of Christmas tree lights flowing
into scrap yards across the United
States every year you know and it's just
another one of these products that you
don't think of you know needing a
wastestream but it does the one you
think Kyle and I were talking about
yesterday well we're vaping you know
devices I mean there's an enormous
amount of vaping scrap out there but but
this is the one that caught my eye in
the late 2000 so after driving around
with Johnson for a week I said you gotta
send me an out of China you gotta send
me to the place and he says ok you call
Raymond my buddy and shijou he'll show
you how it's done
so I take a plane to see John this is
where I end up if you've spent any time
in China nobody is going to show you
their factory without taking you for a
meal and more likely than not getting
you drunk first no it's really it's
really the truth and it's a trust thing
you know if they say we figure if you
you eat and drink with them you're
trustworthy so so that's Raymond's
family and most scrap businesses our
family business they start his family
businesses meif I grew up in a family
scrap business Raymond this is sort of
Raymond's extended family and a couple
other folks thrown in and Raymond's kind
of a shy guy he's the only guy who's you
can't actually see in the photo he's
down here you could kind of get his legs
but after you know after eating this
fantastic meal in in Kenya and I think
is where we had it he said okay well
we're gonna show you a few things and so
the first thing he wanted to show me was
actually the next morning and I had
heard about these and there's gonna be a
video will play into not quite yet I
just wanna explain what it is first so I
want you to see the local scrap market
so I knew about these but I'd never seen
when I'd never been bold enough to just
walk into one myself
oh she ja which is a town none of you
have ever heard of I'm guessing unless
you read junkyard planet has about ten
of these had about ten of these and what
they were is overnight they would
receive shipments of scrap metal it's a
metal facility overnight from around the
world not just the United States Europe
Japan wherever they set out they'd empty
the containers to the inventory out
there and then the scrap traders from
around town would come wait outside the
gate till it opened they opened using
around 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. rush in and
everything is sold within an hour - and
then they take it home to their home
workshops and recycle it whether that
means taking it apart stripping it
whatever this is shijou there were ten
of these if you think about Guangdong
Province the largest scrap importation
Center in the world that means thousands
across Guangdong that means many more
thousands across China this is where all
that metal scrap was going so why don't
you go ahead and I'm going to talk you
through this so Raymond right I think
you just click just click the image up
there okay so this is as it opens up and
there's about a hundred hundred and ten
hundred and twenty guys and it's I say
guys because it's accurate it's it's 99%
of the people who are doing this buying
are men and then they're gonna bring
this home and you can see everybody's
rushing and it's kind of like you know
the big discount sale right after
Christmas you know only this happens
every day fifty-one weeks of the year
the only week it doesn't happen is
Chinese New Year so you're gonna see me
getting some looks because they're not
accustomed to white guys walking in with
cameras going like this you know trying
to stay steady and I wondering you know
what I'm doing there as you can see and
you gonna see me get thrown out
eventually as well yeah that guy was not
happy so what you're gonna see here is
we all walk in to buy scrap you're gonna
see some looming bales of wire yeah and
and that wire is all imported from the
United States this particular yard this
market would receive around six
container shipping containers a wire
from the United States every night they
pull it out and these guys know what
they're buying there's some radiators
you'll see some radiators in there too I
hope you can see it okay but basically
what they'll do is they'll come in and
like a bale like that
or actually that one you can see the
different colors the amazing thing about
this is these guys know the wire so well
they'll be able to say okay the blue
wire has 82 percent copper content the
yellow 79 you know the white 63 and
they're able to make a calculation and
their head right there on how to buy it
you know this is not something you're
taking home to set on fire it's a very
very precise business and it's kind of
fun you know they'll look at it they'll
decide what they want to pay for it and
it's very much it can get heated you
know it's just it's dibs you put your
hand on it
and it's yours to make the offer on and
you usually do because if you don't buy
it somebody else well same with the same
with the radiators and and again you
know thousands of these every morning
across China imported scrap yeah you can
see you're gonna see the camera you'll
see they're gonna shut me down really
quickly here
but every every piece of this is gone in
three hours if not sooner
and they may look like they're not
interested they're just playing it cool
for the coming negotiation
all right then they shut me down so you
can go to go to the next slide okay this
is what happens to that stuff you know
these are that's Raymond actually he's
the guy who's gonna own the Christmas
tree Factory that we're gonna see you
can see another guy taking a picture
because he never lets anybody take his
picture so they figure well if Adams
taking a picture I'm gonna take a
picture too
but this is just a simple wire stripper
you know and it'll just you know run a
cut right down the insulation and then
they'll be guys you could see the one up
here on the left just pulling it off and
you're able to basically mechanically
with hand with hands or there's some
machines that'll do it
pull the copper apart there's no sense
in setting it on fire because the
insulation also has value in fact at one
point around 2012 I was being told that
the market was so tight so competitive
that the big processors we're looking at
the insulation as their profit margin
you know they weren't making money on
the copper so it doesn't make sense to
to burn the stuff okay and that's what
you get clean copper and obviously that
hasn't been burnt because it'd be crazy
to burn it and that's a really really
great commodity you know that can be
sold for you know considerable money
alright here's the next video so anyway
after showing me the market we I drove
over to the local Christmas tree light
recycling facility and and this is it
and I'm gonna play this video the only
thing I'll tell you before we play it is
there
chiju is the Christmas tree light
recycling capital of China for reasons I
don't know it's just that's where people
started doing it and there's I believe
nine factories in shijou and Raymond
told me that they all do around 2
million pounds of Christmas tree lights
a year so it's a lot of Christmas tree
lights the plant you're about to see it
took up about a year to develop but
there's others in China like it the
concept is pretty simple if you know how
to pan for gold you know how to kind of
build this so let's let's run this there
we go ok first thing you do is you take
Christmas tree lights cut them up toss
them in the shredder that's not smoke
that's steam the pipe you see going on
in
there that's water because it gets
really really hot the blades that are
chopping these things up are going
really fast and if you didn't have water
going in there they'd explode what comes
out is a goopy substance which is
basically water plastic a little bit of
glass copper everything that a Christmas
tree light is and this fellow then
shovels them onto these tables and this
is where the panning for gold goes so
what the tables are tilted this way and
the water shoots up and the plastic and
the glass goes off the side and you see
the streak of copper there it's heavier
than the plastic in the glass so that's
how you separate I edited this thick
it's about a 10-minute video otherwise
but you can see this the same concept
you can see the streak of plastic and
glass going off the side there beautiful
separation but it took them
it took Raymond's nephew it's his nephew
and there you go look at that wooden
used to burn when you can do that huh so
low-tech it took it took Raymond's
nephew I believe he said about six
months to calibrate the thing it's not
it's not trivial to do it what happens
to the various stuff so the installation
was then going to at Raymond's point was
going to a slipper sole manufacturer so
you're treading on last year's Christmas
in a sense the copper there's my
favorite detail you want circular
economy I will give you circular economy
sold the Christmas tree light factories
there it is so don't let the EU lecture
you about China about a circular economy
that China's already got it down and
there you can see is a much better
picture where you can see sort of the
streak of copper coming off this thing
so this you know it's a very simple
process and and you know we said great
you know we're running under resourced
order just save the planet everything
the Chinese have figured it out you know
this is world refined copper usage 1920
15 by year
that's crazy we're using more and more
and at the time I wrote junkyard planet
you know it all seemed seemed really
logical to me but the problem is the
world is much more complicated than that
and in recent years I think we all know
this things have changed with the
recycling economy and so
you know what for me was a truth
yesterday and and it was a truth you
know has sort of become a little bit
more mythological so on you to see the
things that have made me change my mind
somewhat on this stuff and and shift my
attention more to repair alright first
this is a great chart that comes from
Joe Picard it is really recognizes us
exports of all scrap commodities to
China you can see they started declining
in 2011 that was really the peak right
around the time the Christmas tree light
recycling was booming so you know we've
been hearing this year it's 2018 we're
hearing about how China is taking less
and less well that decline had already
started happening you can see it right
there and this is as good as it comes
and we all should have probably started
thinking about why it's declining back
then if you're interested in recycling
as a phenomenon as an environmental
solution because if somebody's not
buying that recycling it's headed to the
landfill and the Chinese who are the
world's biggest buyers started to you
know lower the amount of recycling they
were buying at the early part of this
decade
well what happened a few factors the
fact of the matter is we're not running
out and I like copper because it impacts
so many different minerals it's not just
copper it's nickel it's gold
it's some rare earths all that goes
together and you know as prices go up as
things get scarce people start looking
for other sources and it may be really
dirty to dig some of this up but we're
finding more and more reserves
you know recycling competes against new
and people are gonna and if you're gonna
compete you're gonna find more this is
from the US Geological Society at USGS
and USGS and here it is you know if you
look at the total resources that about
identified and are presumed to be
undiscovered and this doesn't mean ocean
floor either that's excluded from this
there's an enormous amount of stuff out
there still so when it comes to copper
nickel gold we are not running out
anytime soon and you know even if you
know the United States companies aren't
digging this up the Chinese we're the
world's biggest resource extractors know
this and they are going to continue to
build mind capacity to take care of that
stuff so that is also driving down
prices other factors I always call it
the elephant the Chinese scrapheap leh
burr costs in China so one of the things
that enabled China to become such a
recycling and manufacturing powerhouse
and they go together was the fact it was
cheap to do they're you know well look
at the price of labor over the last few
years it's becoming more and more
expensive and that stuff is getting
pushed either offshore they're shutting
down those plants or the processing is
happening here but it's becoming more
expensive period to recycle everywhere
and so that is driving down the
employers another thing this is China's
high-speed rail network China for the
last 15 to 20 years went on the biggest
infrastructure binge in the history of
the world that's ending and so again
less demand less need for things like
copper and steel that's a problem and
then Kyle and I were just talking about
this data the other night device if you
look at just the electronics the devices
are becoming more lightweight and less
resource intensive there may be more of
them but this isn't this came from
Walter ed corn at the Consumer
Electronics Association and you can see
just the the actual mass of product
stock is declining most of that is due
to the decline of the CRTs but in
general as you know devices become
smaller they're just using less stuff
and so you have less of a man there and
then then we have a China saying stop
your recycling I wish I had a better
slide for you know symbolizing that but
we're gonna go with Diana Ross and The
Supremes but no China has said they
don't want to import there's a lot of
controversy around why they're doing
this I think there's two reasons one
they want to develop their domestic
recycling industry without competition
from foreign recyclers who have better
quality stuff and there's also a
nationalist component to it so it's
changing everything and it's driving the
price of recyclables down and that makes
means because we all heard paper and
plastic are increasingly going to
landfills and it's becoming less and
less economically viable to recycle the
to recycle the the metals so what I've
been thinking about is what do we do and
that's partly the topic of the next book
one of the things I like to do is look
back at history because you know most
things repeat and so there is I think a
historical analog for what we're going
through right now
and it's in Star Wars so I love Star
Wars for a lot of reasons but one is it
has a lot of junkyards in it every every
single Star Wars on their scrap yards
your notice that it's a huge topic in
the Star Wars series episode one crappy
episode one there is anakin walking
through a stunk yard but the funny thing
is if you if you grew up in a junker if
you spend time and junk here it's like I
do the one thing you always notice about
the Star Wars junkyards is they're not
actually doing any recycling the stuffs
just sitting there there's no Baylor's
there's no shredders there's no
Christmas tree lights recycling there's
nobody even setting things on fire so
you know and you can see this instead
you've got people just picking up stuff
the Jawas are my favorite because my my
my relatives when they came to the u.s.
they were basically Jawas they were
picking stuff off the streets and
putting in it in horse-drawn carts and
and in trucks and so the Jawas are
basically the russian jews of their time
russian immigrant Jews of their time
except they have a Sam crawler you know
an inside the sand crawler it's all this
sort of fixable stuff you know nobody's
melting it down there's my favorite
example of something weird in the Star
Wars recycling economy so we've got this
big Star Destroyer and they generate a
lot of trash and an empire they dump the
trash
you ever notice what the trash is it's
big hunks of steel they say you should
be melting that down like you don't just
throw giant you know you know TIE
fighter sized hunks of steel into the
solar system wherever it is you know you
melt it down but they don't they throw
it away so why would they throw it away
well one reason would be it's not worth
very much money there has to be within
the Star Wars universe basically
resource surplus and and again here's
another example that crashed Star
Destroyer think of India think of all
the pics you've seen of the beached
ships in India where they take them
apart by hand why are they doing that on
jakku you know again because there's no
value to it instead you've got rey
driving around picking up small pieces
and then what she do those pieces are
usable she sells it to this dude for
portions so my theory is there is
resource oversupply and here's Mustafar
the volcano planet they've got so much
steel available to them the Empire does
they have an entire planet that all they
do is mine lava
free metal so it drives down the cost of
the commodity and so if you find you
stuff what do you do with it
you fix it because there's no value
otherwise the value add the value add is
what has been done to it there is no
value in the commodity itself and I
think that's one of the things you're
starting to see with recyclers that I
spend time with more and more recyclers
whether electronic or otherwise are now
setting up what they'll call their eBay
rooms and what are the eBay rooms the
eBay rooms are the Poland parts and
you've seen it you go on eBay you all
know this eBay is filled with parts from
scrap yards because there's no value I
mean there's a believe me there's still
value in copper and gold and and
everything else but there's a whole lot
more embodied value in the stuff itself
and so it's been a bit of a revelation
to me just going from scrap pair to
Scott Baird is you are beginning to see
the focus refocus on to the resource
efficiency and that is the repair the
parts they're taking their cue I think
well if you tell them they're taking
their cue from starwars they don't say
you're crazy but but essentially that's
what it is this isn't new it's happening
in the United States but it's been
happening in junkyards and recycling
operations around the world for much
longer so this is the famous 60 minutes
episode from 2008 filmed and away you
I'm sure some of you know about it South
China this is the great a waste dumping
ground notorious if you look up where
you on Google you'll get tens of
thousands of responses saying that it's
you know the world's greatest
environmental disaster I have been
visiting GUI you since 2003 it's not a
place you want a vacation it's also not
a place you want to eat the seafood
trust me you know you you would see in
the early 2000 stuff like this where
people would be taking gold bearing
scrap dumping it in barrels and
chemicals and you'd get gorgeous orange
clouds I mean the the color was really
something to see but of course you don't
want to get this close to it but the
thing is one thing I know about
scrappers having grown up in one is that
there's usually more value than what the
camera shows and so it became kind of a
quest of mine and I did this in junqeira
Planet to show that there's more of an
economy happening there than is
typically present
in these sort of environmental disaster
stories that you see in on 60 minutes
the first thing I wanted to do when I
went to boy you was I didn't want to
just see what was going on outside you
know if I take you to your local
recycling company and I only show you
pictures of what's going on out back in
the dumpsters is that an accurate
picture of what's happening there not at
all you need to go inside so here's
what's inside there's one of the biggest
warehouses in Gawai you and that's a
bunch of Samsung boards everybody tells
me you can't get Samsung boards you know
well if you go to Glade you you can get
a lot of them cuz they're flown right
out of the factory somehow or another
somebody's getting them there and
there's thousands and thousands in that
pile right there and I don't need to
tell you you some of those are still
gonna be good and you could pack them up
and you can make a sale and that's
precisely what's going on in going you
seventy-five percent of the business in
Gua you was parts 25% is extraction and
if you go into Boyer workshops that's
what you can see this is uh I don't know
where I put the copy of the photo
without the copyright on it I'm sorry
about that but um this is your standard
when you work shopping what are they
doing they would only let me take the
picture from here but thanks to zoom
digital zoom you can see what she's
doing she's picking parts off the boards
and cutting uh cuttings processors out
and that stuff's going to be sold well
here you can see there again you don't
do that if you're gonna set this stuff
on fire right you're gonna do that if
you're selling it individually and
that's what she's doing some of that
will be sold for recycling it won't all
be reused but some of it will be and it
won't just be sold in China I mean the
best people to get the most gold out of
that aren't in China they're in Japan
you go to Mitsubishi you go to well Doha
Kousaka these are incredibly
technologically efficient operations and
the businesspeople in Gawai you are not
primitives they know how to access those
markets the other thing you'll have is
you actually have parts markets I mean
you know if somebody from iFixit came
across the display case like that I
think it'd be really tempting to by
attempting to buy some inventory that's
precisely what they're doing this is
I'll show you a picture of in a moment
there's two streams one is the Riu
stream and this stuff is being sold
primarily to toy factories throughout
South China the right is the recycling
stream those are
who's gonna go for gold recovery
probably in Japan so this is the main
parts market in gwei you it's take note
of four stories and its enforcers five
stories and and all of these motorcycles
you notice have these containers on them
what are they doing they're going in
there and they're buying chips for their
factories production that day maybe you
need you know 500 486 X DX 2's if you
can get them they're really hard to get
which would be perfectly fine to run you
know a sign you know that tells you what
the daily specials are at the local
diner up the street so here we are in
sight so this is one aisle of the market
out of it would be nine on this side of
the building five storeys you can see
people really don't want to be
photographed when I took out the camera
everybody ran because it's granny market
and and it's been demonized sometimes
for good reason sometimes for not and so
you don't want to be photographed in
here but it's not just underground
this is Shenzhen and we all know
Shenzhen and this is the qua Chong Bay
neighborhood has anybody been to watch
young BAE okay so you know what I'm
going to show them so watch on BAE is a
globally important parts market in
Shenzhen it's where if you are designing
anything if you are making anything you
go there to find the parts inevitably
whenever I'm in Watchung Bay and I like
to go there because it's super
interesting and you all would enjoy it
as well there's inevitably some guy
walking around with the Golden State
Warriors jersey it's just inevitable I'm
gonna see that guy and he looks really
jet-lagged you know cuz he's just in
from over here and he's looking for
parts and that's what it's all about so
this is just this is the s e-g parts
market and this is it's 14 floors like
this it's a mall and the stalls are as
tight as what you saw in Goa you and you
can buy anything there and this is a
standard display so you'll see I don't
even know what kind of boards these are
made somebody in here would know but you
don't just pull a board off the wall
there and say you know take it to the
cash register you see the board and you
say I need twenty-five hundred of these
and they order them up from their
factories and why you because that's
where all the e-waste is going from
around the world or was and they then
pull them there now they're going to
other places but they can still
poem it's your circular economy right
there but it's a hard story to tell it's
not surprisingly if you go into the
subway is there the subways are filled
with advertisements for repair equipment
you know and you don't repair new stuff
I mean you do if it's a factory
production problem but you repair you
stuff and that's what they're doing
there you know again smartphone magnets
equipment why would you be selling that
in China well it's because you have a
huge market for repaired stuff there I'm
gonna show you my favorite market in
quattron Bay which is a place it's very
uncomfortable to buy to take photos so I
apologize for the photo oh wait they
have more equipment I don't even know
what some of this you use some of this
stuff for but there's there's market
stalls all over watch on Bay all right
this is the greatest place in all of
watch on Bay this is the iPhone market
okay this is one this is one ninth of it
so this is one side then there's another
there's the first-floor one side of it
if you look in the cases here you can
see iPhones but those are not just
iPhones
those are iPhone parts now where are
these parts coming from some of these
are coming out the back door of Apple
suppliers um these are clearly new some
you know if you can get one you can
probably get somebody to stamp similar
ones but it's not just cases the place
is filled with this stuff I mean kind of
how many vendors would you say thousands
and what are they doing in there they're
making iPhones from used in new parts
you know and they're fixing them you can
see he's got one there they are making
so many iPhones from old parts that they
are literally selling them out of
seafood coolers on the street in front
and behind and around and up the street
from these watching Bay stores you know
I you know I have I don't want you I
look I I do what I do so I find this
kind of heroic I'm also aware that it's
illegal and you know on many levels at
least from if you're Apple it's uh what
is it it's it's gray market you know in
some of its fraudulent because you're
assembling iPhones passing the MA
there's new iPhones when they are not
new by phones you know if you go on
Alibaba lazada you're going to see
iPhones for very cheap shipping from
Shenzhen I can tell you where they're
shipping from and they're not real
iPhones you know so it's fraud you know
it's kind of green fraud though yeah oh
so you do the moral calculus for me I
haven't made up my mind yet
and had you guys know this video yeah
it's this is kwok-hung Bay you know he
made a big joke out of it but if you're
Donald Trump and you're telling about
intellectual property violations it's
not so entertaining it's green fraud I
don't know but anyway this is this does
a better job of showing you the
ecosystems of what I've just done and if
you haven't seen the video it's really
worth watching it's it's terrifically
done it's not just iPhones I'm just
gonna show you two slides different
examples you know what that is on the
right those are laptop battery cells you
see what's going on in the left there is
that clear those that's I mean that's
the say that's a close-up of on the
right of what's unless those are cases
so what they do in China when the laptop
batteries come back they take them they
break them oftentimes on the floor which
I don't recommend snip out the cells put
them in these cases charge them up and
then time how long it takes for them to
drain then there's a market for
different capacities there's a market
for 30% 50% 70% and you wrap them up and
you got new cell packs yes
you know you I mean green fraud cuz
they're selling them as new I you know I
bought I've bought batteries uh I bought
a laptop battery for out of China once
and and it charged about seventy percent
you know that's just what it is this is
the circular economy that that could be
unless we design things a little bit
better so I'm gonna show you probably
the four most important slides I'm going
to show him that I'm almost done cuz I
know we're all hungry and I'll take
question the answer this looks like a
mess I'm gonna explain to you what it is
because it's really really important so
this was done by an academic in
Newfoundland by his name of Josh
Lepofsky and you should invite him or or
meet him he's terrific you know his work
don't you so you know do you know this
man
yeah so it's okay so what this is is
this is a map of global a waste trade
flows in 1996 but I but here's how it
works okay the blue the big blue dots
the size of the dot corresponds to how
big a generator an exporter they are and
so you can see the United States is a
very big blue dot and if you are
shipping from a basically developed
country to developed country you get a
blue line okay and those would be oacd
countries if you are shipping from a
developed country like the United States
to Indonesia you get a green line so
that's what we a lot of us think of as a
waste dumping and if you are a
developing country shipping e waste to
another developing country you get a
yellow line so you can see that in 1996
this trade was you know it was a lot of
green lines and a few yellow ones and a
few blue ones now look at 2012 what do
you see and this is the most up to date
it's mostly yellow lines you know we
have this very developed country centric
Western centric view of what our waste
problem is but the fact of the matter is
you know technology is getting cheaper
and people in developing countries are
getting richer and what we do here
doesn't quite matter as much anymore
because they're going to trade with each
other and that's what they've done we
see it a lot in China and I spend
spending time in Africa you see a lot of
Chinese used equipment moving into
Africa
you see African used equipment moving
between African countries and that's
what you see here let me give you a
little bit more of a a simpler view of
this this is 1996 this is trade between
China between China it was it was
shipping stuff between it and Hong Kong
and Macau not much not much going on
there now look at the trade network
centered on China it's become global so
but it's interesting in its own right
and it's very important I think to you
know get away from this whole notion of
of this sort of being a Western centric
trade but the other thing to keep in
mind is it's not just about material
flows it's also about idea flows there's
gonna be the last video and what this is
is I can't tell you who it is but this
is a factory in the United States that
is taking circuit boards and recovering
ships from them and the technique that
you're going to be seeing here was
taught to them by recyclers in Goa
so you're now you're seeing the idea
flow the concept of a recycling economy
go ahead and display it yeah
and the chips will be tested if I told
you that this was being done in China
you'd say oh well you probably wouldn't
but a lot of people say oh how primitive
well it's actually being done right here
in the good ol USA and I know there's
others doing it as well so again it's
the idea flow as well you know for a
long time folks have been saying that we
need to you know the the developed
developing world needs to you know learn
to recycle like we do I think you know
one of the things we need to be thinking
is that maybe the developed world needs
to start recycling like the developing
world does and that's a big challenge
cuz there's the whole green fraud aspect
to it there's there's a lot of problems
but but I think it needs to be discussed
I think in general I keep telling people
we all need to be start thinking a
little bit more like Rey and with that
this is my book in case you're
interested I think some of you already
seen it but I'm open to any Q&A and
these are some of the ideas I'm
expressing you are some of the things
I'm thinking about for the new book so
love to hear your thoughts on them as
well
[Applause]