make 2009 a year that you fight e-waste

you know what's boring about recycling? it's repetitive. it's monotonous. it's everyday. and everyone else is doing it.

it's also really inconvenient. i think the only time i recycle is when i go to whole foods (good news, i go there every week.) i get paper bags (which i reuse often for carrying garbage) and more often, i eat there, in cardboard containers. on the way out i throw out my plastic fork (someday they will make these of a material that is easy to recycle) and sort everything else into "compost only."

i suspect a lot of this stuff is just incinerated. but they make it just as easy to recycle as not recycle, so what the hell, why not? i think this is the key to recycling's future, make it more like whole foods.

but i didn't want to talk about boring old recycling, i want to talk about tech. yes, mac should take in all mac equipment for recycling, but not send it to china where all the other recycled components go, where slave laborers burn components apart and breathe in lead fumes.

with computer equipment, there needs to be a better model. most of the equipment full of every other toxin imaginable is still very useful when it goes to the garbage. it has the illusion of being used-up, because that's about how literate the average user is (sad, but true.)

they can't find another use for it, and no one to take it, so they throw it away, this isn't an everyday event like when you throw out a can. often, people need the space. but there's usually a geek somewhere that could use this stuff, (and i wish more people would become those geeks, because they have been recycling computers longer than most people have been recycling bottles and cans) it's a question of organization.

ebay is an immense help in this regard, and they should get a big award for helping people recycle, but ebay is tedious and requires you to do online monetary transactions, a prospect that still turns off millions of potential donors.

every metropolitan area should have a place that takes old equipment, schools should consider making arrangements with the community, just like branham high school and their spare program. they are expanding to collect e-waste.


obviously you shouldn't take over for the salvation army, tell people to avoid any items they don't remember buying after 1995. be specific, tell them not to bring video games (they belong on e-bay,) stereo or video equipment, (unless you really want that stuff,) just stuff for computers. most people know a vcr is not a computer.

the best part is you wouldn't have to volunteer weekly or collect items more than twice a year. and you'd still be making an enormous difference. plus you'll make geeks everywhere extremely happy. usually they have to dive into dumpsters for this stuff. one of the things that does the most to revitalize this old equipment is the free software movement, but i talk about that all the time. you can help by getting involved with that too, but even the free software movement needs equipment.