I have a laptop and an ipod with broken LCDs, as well as four desktop computers that I obtained from friends who were going to throw them away. All six of these devices are sitting under my bed, collecting dust - oh don't say that I'm becoming a hoarder, the laptop and ipod still work perfectly, I just can't see anything, and the desktop computers could be fixed with about 5 minutes of a technician's time; I'm going to fix them myself....someday...
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| Man putting his old laptop into the nearby E-Waste bin |
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| A look inside the bin |
What's actually going to happen is that all of these devices are going to get thrown into the trash (not e-waste recycling) because I'm never going to find the time to try to fix them, I'm not going to pay to have them fixed, and I'm not going to pay to recycle them. But there's a potential solution to this waste of resources that I would like to propose: a non-profit organization that collects these devices, assesses what is working, and implements them to best serve society.
When I studied abroad in Padova, Italy, I noticed large yellow bins all over the city in which you can drop off old clothes, shoes, etc., which the church picks up and redistributes to the poor. They look like large mail boxes. I thought it was such a great idea that I researched the concept and found that a non-profit called
Planet Aid (although it has some
dubious affiliations) does the same in the US. I think a similar model could be implemented for electronic devices. If there was a box in my neighborhood, I would walk over there with these old devices, drop them off, and feel good knowing that they would be put to optimal use in serving society. People could throw any electronic-related devices in the bins: cell phones, CD players, cords, monitors, and the organization would come pick up the items. The organization would have a few technicians who would sort through and test the various electronics, properly recycling the items that are truly unsalvageable, and keeping those that still have working parts. These devices will then be hooked up to form an ever growing supercomputer, which can be used for processing of data like
BOINC, or for public storage; whatever best serves society. The resources these devices provide would be used optimally, instead of being thrown away, or sitting under my bed collecting dust and deteriorating. The other alternative would be to rebuild computers and send them to poor countries, but this scheme would require significantly less labor since aesthetics of the device are not important.
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| Assembly of all the parts to make a supercomputer |
1)Reduce 2)Reuse 3)Recycle --- since reducing consumption of electronic goods is not going to happen, the next best thing is to
reuse them, which this organization would seek to do.
Update: I recently found that there is a non-profit organization called
Free Geek that takes computer donations, fixes them up and gives them away to other non-profits or sells them for a small price to sustain the organization. Great!
When I studied abroad in Padova, Italy, I noticed large yellow bins all over the city in which you can drop off old clothes, shoes, etc., which the church picks up and redistributes to the poor. They look like large mail boxes. I thought it was such a great idea that I researched the concept and found that a non-profit called Planet Aid (although it has some dubious affiliations) does the same in the US. I think a similar model could be implemented for electronic devices. If there was a box in my neighborhood, I would walk over there with these old devices, drop them off, and feel good knowing that they would be put to optimal use in serving society. People could throw any electronic-related devices in the bins: cell phones, CD players, cords, monitors, and the organization would come pick up the items. The organization would have a few technicians who would sort through and test the various electronics, properly recycling the items that are truly unsalvageable, and keeping those that still have working parts. These devices will then be hooked up to form an ever growing supercomputer, which can be used for processing of data like BOINC, or for public storage; whatever best serves society. The resources these devices provide would be used optimally, instead of being thrown away, or sitting under my bed collecting dust and deteriorating. The other alternative would be to rebuild computers and send them to poor countries, but this scheme would require significantly less labor since aesthetics of the device are not important.
nick -- yeah this is a great idea and one that is actually available at a lot of places. I am SURE that there are several places on the Berkeley campus that do this. Quick googling: there are e-waste drop offs at ALL CAL DINING HALLS. One of the concerns about e-waste recycling is that these computers have a lot of confidential information and there have been breeches of confidential information being shared when they get sent to China and India to be broken down. So it is good to erase the hard drive before you turn it over. But, I agree. great to recycle e-waste and good to utilize the resources available on your campus!
ReplyDeleteYes, Nonny, E-waste is collected in many places, but the recyclers don't spend the time to see what is still working, they just extract the valuable metals and crush up the rest. My proposition is to see what is working, and use it as is.
ReplyDeleteI was talking with Uttam and he said that in Nepal there are people that are extremely tech savvy and have learned to assess and fix anything computer or electronic related because labor is so much cheaper there; buying a new computer would be a lot more expensive. In the United States its the other way around: you can buy a new computer very inexpensively but service is extremely expensive, so when something breaks you throw it away instead of paying to get it fixed.
If we got some of these people to work for such a RE-USE center, then it would be BETTER than recycling. That's the point I'm making.