06 — Notes
Very little is written publicly about circular recovery of mineral byproduct by women's groups in western Kenya. These notes are an attempt to explain the domain clearly, including the parts that count against us.
These are explainers of the problem, not descriptions of the enterprise. Where a note touches something we have not yet done, it says so in the note rather than leaving the reader to infer it.
Each carries the date it was last reviewed. If a note is more than a year past its review date, treat it as unmaintained and tell us.
Note 01
Waste is a legal classification with consequences attached, not a synonym for material somebody has finished with, and which word applies decides who may lawfully handle a consignment.
Note 02
A buyer's purchasing decision is a compliance decision, and the three questions it has to answer about any consignment are all questions about documents rather than about material.
Note 03
Grading is the work of turning a variable heap into a described product with a stated tolerance, and it is a skilled judgement rather than a sorting chore.
Note 04
A lot's identity has to be created where the material is first handled, because everything downstream can only ever be a copy of that first capture.
Note 05
Industrial symbiosis is one operation's residue becoming another's specified input, and the gain sits in the specification rather than in the good intention.
Note 06
Formalisation changes what a day's work is measured against, moving payment from a negotiation over a sack to a calculation against a specification and a register.
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These notes describe a domain in which we are practitioners rather than authorities. Corrections are welcome and will be credited.