Slashdot Mirror
"eCycling" Pilot Program in 5 States and D.C.
Mr. Slippery writes: "Several /. stories have discussed the problem of disposing of electonic gear laden with hazardous materials. The EPA, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, DC, and about a dozen corporate sponsors have launched a pilot program to collect and recycle computers and electronics. The objective is to collect data to "develop a long-term cost effective system to remove computers (including
monitors & peripherals) and TVs from the municipal waste stream."
(My car is now loaded up with five monitors, 3 old HP RISC worksations, several partial PCs, an old TV, and various parts and pieces for the Baltimore County drop-off tomorrow...if any area geeks are looking to scavange old gear this might be a prime opportunity.)"
Toss out old unix boxen. I've been wanting a PArisc box for years. Don't suppose you'd be willing to ship?
It's a shame these programs don't put stuff aside so that poor geeks (like - the really poor ones with hand-me-down 386's and the like) can get some old hardware.
:)
Most of these places are just pure break down and destroy. Which makes sense economically, but still..
Perltop - GTK / Perk Desktop environment
If you are anywhere near FallsChurch, come to Broad St. There is a huge banner in the
middle of the road that will guide you to the exact location.
If you are in Alexandria, take Leesburg Pike and drive towards Baily's cross-roads, Leesburg
turns to Broad St. Stay on that (please go 25mph, fallschurch is over populated, it is a
residential area, and our cops are broke, hehehe)
For those of you coming from the other side of Leesburg (tyson's corner) just stay on Leesburg
and head towards Falls Church (aim at the Route 66 exit, if you have to.) and you will
land in Broad St.
One of the problems with capitalism is the utter lack of cern with what happens to a product after it has been used. _Every_ product should have its disposial and / or recycling plan sorted out before it is even sold. Anything else is to cohourt disaster with the earth's resources and environment.
The Redundant Technology Initiative have been doing this sort of thing in my hometown of Sheffield, UK for a number of years now.
RTI is an arts group based in Sheffield, England. It started in 1997 with a group of artists who wanted to get involved with information technology, but didn't have the resources to buy computers. So instead they went about getting their hands on trash computers, finding new ways to be creative with old technology, then exhibiting the results.
Now RTI has accumulated hundreds of machines and has raised money to open a media lab, called Access Space where people can learn, create and communicate using trailing-edge technology. At last, after a series of frustrating delays, Access Space finally opened on April 6th 2000.
We had a fairly groovy Wireless Internet Workshop too at Access Space last November.
cogito ergo sig...
Throwing away an HP RISC? A pity. Give that stuff away, or trade something for it at TradeBoxen.
I'm not affiliated with the site, I just swapped some shit there recently.
It's better that it goes in the office than the landfill.
No sig is worth reading.
I would require that the maker pay the refund fees.
We could do Data mining with a shovel and dig up the landfills. Just think we could at last bring down AOL by a forced return of all those CDs they send out.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
We should be reducing our consumption of computing equipment, and thankfully huge performance gains in recent years allow us to own them longer.
Reuse is a great second consideration. You probably have very high standards for you computer's performance...but I bet you neighbor doesn't! GIve the damn thing away to someone who can make real use of it.
Finally recycle. A great first-step approach here would be to start a business that takes disposed of computers, strips them down and uses the parts to create ultra-low-price boxes that can be resold. For example - consider two individuals discarding PCs because of resource starvation in one aspect of their systems. Jimmy drops of a Pentium with a twenty GB hard drive. Ann drops off a PIII with hardly any disk space. Well, combine Jimmy's disk with Ann's CPU and you have the start of a PC that you could actually sell for maybe $200. Of course you would be obligated to cleanly dispose of the parts you don't use, but you get the idea. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried this.
Everybody who thinks that people who THROW AWAY UNIX BOXEN should be banned from posting on slashdot, raise their hands.
Anyone know anything about places like this in New York? Preferably the Rochester area. I mean there are lots of computer folk up here, but no computer recycling I know of. It would help us out a lot if we could pick up some old boxen for servin' small time stuff.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Others may be able to make use of your old PC. There are many places arround the country, like Freebytes in Atlanta.
This sig intentionally left blank.
I see a problem with cost. Proper disposal of a computer in the United States normally costs between $5 and $10, compared to $1 or less in third-world countries.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
People in New Jersey and New York City might be interested in the Trenton Computer Festival next weekend. Lots of old junk to buy/sell/barter/gawk at. Recycling is good, but if someone wanted to pay for your old junk, that's even better.
When I owned my computer store I used to get tons of computers that people would just give me that I wouldn't buy from them I had the whole basement fl of antique computers. You could put a free ad in your local paper and people would probably give you more computers then you could handle.
http://Lenny.com
for older computers, such as the vic-20, some of the really old apple 2 clones, and atari or TI machines, i used to go to the Mile High Flea market in denver. they always had really good selections on the old stuff. last year I picked up a vic-20, cassette player, vicmodem (300 baud even!), and a couple games on tape for $11. then I found a 1541 drive a cople booths over for an additional $5. every time going down there I have seen lots of computers from that era. I picked up a mac plus there once for $14 too :) They have 386s and crap too, and once i found an AT&T machine. it ran some kind of unix. the salesman said it was DOS, but... he pronounced DOS like DOSE :)
www.ban.org
includes photos, a pdf version of the report, and you can even order a 23 minute video.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Yet Another Confusing Buzzword, from people too lazy to do more than stick "e" or "web" in front of some mangled, ambigious collection of syllables. Here's the real definition
"E-cycling: the inevitable, cyclical, occurance of ill-defined buzzwords formed by mindlessly attaching the letter "e" to some word or pseudo word. See websturbation."
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
They have an automated shredding and separation system for electronics. Such systems have been around for a while. A combination of grinders, screens, AC and DC magnets, cyclones, and float tanks separates out ferrous metals, nonferrous metals, dense plastics, and low-density plastics. Once separated, the metals have some value, the high-density plastics have some marginal value, and what's left is no worse than household waste.
CRT recycling is still a problem. There are very few plants that can cut up a CRT and recover the leaded glass for use in making new CRTs.
See, now I read the title, and I thought the article would be a recycling program for Palm Pilots. ;-)
sigs are a waste of space
I picked up a moniter and a nice keyboard a few months ago. They go well with the 486/66 that work was throwing out a couple years ago. (Actually I picked up two of them.)
Last week there was an Epson printer, but I was in a hurry, and didn't have time to look at it. I might have taken it, and replaced it with my HP Deskjet 500. :^)
I'm hoping for a 17" monitor next!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
if any area geeks are looking to scavange old gear this might be a prime opportunity
Be careful if you decide to root through the recycling center's collection of old stuff. Many municipalities consider the property their own, making it a criminal act to pilfer from the recycle piles. My own town refuses to let you walk off with recylced computer junk due to hazardous waste laws: It would be like letting you browse through all the discarded pesticides and chemicals, picking the ones you want to take home with you.
eCycling is my Specialized Ground Control Comp A1 equiped with hokey spokes, Garmin GPS, Bike Brain and a 1,000 song sound system.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I've got a few old cases that I don't want to deal with. I'm guessing that these can go to some regular kind of recycling or disposal center since they don't have all the nasty chemicals that pcb's and other components have in them.
What kind of places would take them?
-prator
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
This has been happening for a while now in Cary, NC.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I will recycle all Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11, PDP-8, and other PDP computers that are shipped to my recycling center in Oklahoma. There is no fee for this service, and I will gladly provide a signed, notarized receipt that absolves my customers of all liability for their recycled machines. You can rest assured that your machines will be processed properly and will not simply wind up in some landfill.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Microsoft and the BSA will be inspecting all PCs sent for recycling to make sure that the original OEM CD, manual, Quick Start booklet, registration, hologram, CD-key sticker and cellophane wrapping are included, so they know which PC owners to sue for using the products they purchased.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.