E-waste in the military

Two years ago, the Pentagon and the US Senate Armed Services Committee reported that vital components of the nation’s military hardware routinely include “counterfeit” electronic materials, from China (70%), the UK (11%), and Canada (9%). The Pentagon defines counterfeiting as recycled materials wrongly sold as new, or misuse of others’ intellectual property.

Often these counterfeits come from recycled e-waste – the committee estimated more than a million counterfeit parts were in service in US planes. It’s no surprise much of this can be traced back to China, where counterfeiting operates at an industrial level, with factory floors populated by thousands of workers dedicated to the task.

Take the Boeing P8 Poseidon, a plane used by the US Navy to drop torpedoes, depth charges and carry surveillance equipment. In 2011, Boeing reported it had discovered a faulty ice detection system in the aircraft, according to the senate committee report. Further investigation revealed the part was previously used, and made to appear new.

After tracing the parts through companies in California and then Florida, it turned out the ice detection equipment had originally come from “an affiliate of A Access Electronics in Shenzhen, China.” And before that? Who knows? Investigators from the senate committee wanted to find out but were denied Chinese visas.

Now the story is in the news again. Forbes has just published a column on the topic as did National Defense magazine, an obvious mouthpiece for the military industrial complex. The principal beneficiaries of the complex are warning that this malfeasance continues unabated, and at a massive level, despite 2012 legislation designed to quell it.

The senate committee report refers to “risks to national security and the safety of US military personnel” posed by this trade in counterfeit e-waste. There is no mention of the risks posed to people all over the world by the United States’ very use of matériel, of course.

But the fact that e-waste is on the agenda in such powerful quarters bodes well for real reform towards managing it properly.

The technology is available to recycle our electronic pleasures in a much safer way than is generally the case. In many instances, laws exist to mandate that. What we need is proper use of the technology and serious enforcement of such legislation. But beyond that, we need an end to the built-in obsolescence and advertising-fuelled clamour surrounding innovation.

Extracted and republished under the Creative Commons license, from theconversation.com.