Of the many pieces of advice that I’ve been given in China, perhaps the most curious was one of the earliest: Namely, if you ever find yourself in a tight spot, don’t count on foreign service officers to get you out of it. Fortunately, I’ve never been in a position where I’ve had to test…
All posts in Scrap
Alleged Scrap Trader Kidnapping – More Details, More Documents
In late October this blog published an account by the British metal trader, Goldarrow, of an alleged kidnapping of one of its traders by a state-owned scrap trading company in Ningbo. Subsequently, I published the rather meager “legal” response of the Ningbo trading company and the trader in question, James Xu. And since then, I’ve…
Guiyu is Chinese.
Over the weekend I plugged the 60 Minutes segment on e-scrap processing in Guiyu with a promise to comment on it. So, without further ado, and despite a surfeit of scrap-related blogging over the last two weeks, here goes. In 2002, the Basel Action Network, a US-based activist group concerned with the export of high-tech…
Two Faces of China Scrap
In the six years that I’ve been visiting Chinese scrap yards, I’ve done my best to focus on the lives of the millions of laborers who work in them. It’s not just a matter of sentimentality, either: so much of the writing and reporting on China’s scrap trade seems determined to depict China’s scrap laborers…
60 Minutes E-scrap report
[UPDATE: My commentary on the CBS segment can be found here.] On Sunday night, the CBS News program 60 Minutes will air “Following the Trail of Toxic E-Waste,” in which reporter Scott Pelley and his camera crew are “roughed up” by individuals guarding an e-scrap processing workshop in Guiyu. According to the advanced press issued…
Alleged Ningbo Kidnapper Responds!
[I’ve posted Goldarrow’s legal complaint, here.] It’s becoming harder and harder to pretend that I’m not blogging again until November 1. But my sincere desire to be fair and balanced requires that I make one more post related to the notorious Ningbo scrap kidnapping. For those who haven’t been following the issue, the international scrap…
Scrap Trader Kidnapped, Held for Ransom in Ningbo.
[FINAL UPDATE: Three weeks later and this post is still generating significant traffic. Since then, I’ve written several follow-ups, supplemented with important source documents on this case. Of these, the most crucial are Goldarrow’s legal filing against Ningbo Yibao, the British Foreign Office’s response to the alleged kidnapping, and Ningbo Yibao’s legal response. Finally, as…
Out of the blue, into the black: A few thoughts on China’s new “e-waste” law
I started reporting on the Chinese scrap industry six years ago, and I think that I wrote my first story claiming that China’s long-awaited laws on the recycling of e-scrap (computers, monitors, etc) were imminent, shortly after SARS, in July 2003. Since then – off the top of my head – I’m fairly certain that…
The Olympic Scrap (Peddler) Crackdown
Over the last week I’ve received at least one email or phone call per day in regard to the crackdown/ban on Beijing’s scrap peddlers during the Olympics period. As I’ve said to those who ask, I’ll say to those who read: I don’t plan to arrive in Beijing for another ten days, and until then,…
A Gift for BOCOG: An Even Greener Olympics
I’ve derived no small amount of pleasure – and blog posts – from the news releases on the official Beijing Olympic website. So, in thanks for more than a year’s worth of material, I am going to humbly offer (and email!) this tip that I hope will enhance Beijing’s reputation as the host of the…