This comment was written by Richard Rath on 15 Sep 2015.
Reassembling RubbishMain MenuReassembling RubbishThe opening page into this project.The Rubbish BinA place to engage our audiences.Works CitedA bibliography of works referred to in this project.Josh Lepawsky31444794f29f45991a28c6c997946216e765688e
Comtrade Queries
12015-09-15T02:06:35-07:00Richard Rathaf60df475385e6d92b1b582969f6b0cfa3efb2b43861plain2015-09-15T02:06:35-07:00Richard Rathaf60df475385e6d92b1b582969f6b0cfa3efb2b4Why only category 854810, with batteries as proxy for e-waste? what about 8548, which includes all electronic scrap not otherwise specified in addition to batteries? And wouldn't 7112, items for recovering presious metals, be relevant? There seems to be a lot of slippage in getting from batteries to e-waste, which you discuss, but then you proceed with the visualizations and I assume the other parts with this elision as the basis for the recommendation to reconsider global flows. Also, I came upon your work from a wikipedia article that basically says the BAN claims are preposterous and site this e-book, while your indeterminate position seems much more nuanced and ambivalent. I know you can't control how your work is used, but it seems that some of the same rhetorical strategies you underline in the "controversy" section are being deployed in an uncritical manner and then are citing you as the source!
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12016-01-12T09:30:39-08:00Josh Lepawsky31444794f29f45991a28c6c997946216e765688eWhat to count when counting e-waste?Josh Lepawsky1plain2016-01-12T09:30:39-08:00Thanks for your comment Richard. As I noted elsewhere, I owe you an apology for not realizing until now that your comment was pending. I am still learning Scalar's abilities on this.
Which data category to use to count e-waste is a complex issue. I've written about it in depth in a recent article, which you can access for free. See the "Methods" section of:
Lepawsky, J. (2015), The changing geography of global trade in electronic discards: time to rethink the e-waste problem. The Geographical Journal, 181: 147–159. doi: 10.1111/geoj.12077
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geoj.12077/full
The politics of documenting e-waste flows is also something I address in some detail here:
http://discardstudies.com/2016/01/04/trading-on-distortion/Josh Lepawsky31444794f29f45991a28c6c997946216e765688e
Contents of this reply:
12014-07-07T06:48:13-07:00Josh Lepawsky31444794f29f45991a28c6c997946216e765688eVisualizing Transboundary Shipments of E-waste42Interactive cartograms of the e-waste trade.revpar2014-07-23T09:33:13-07:00Josh Lepawsky31444794f29f45991a28c6c997946216e765688e