Creative Recycling: Dumpster Diving

gnewton writes "One angle of Open Source software that perhaps has not been emphasised enough is how the lower cost of software and operating systems as compared to proprietary/commercial solutions can allow for greater creativity and actually open up markets and solutions that were previously unavailable, in the area of Recycling. This article talks about a new startup which recycles old LCDs into cool and fun digital picture frames."

Comments

Any OS projects for this?

[Bob McCown]

Basically, the Wallflower displays are Web servers that appear on a Windows desktop as disk drives?you put one on your network and you can just drag pictures onto it, and call up its internal home page to manage its settings. Now you have a nice big electronic photo frame to show your digital pictures, and changing the display is as easy as typing a URL into your home computer.

Sounds like a cool project. Anyone in the OpenSource community done one?

turn notebook LCD into desktop monitor?

[kavau]

...recycles old LCDs into cool and fun digital picture frames...

I'd like to recycle my old notebook's LCD into a secondary monitor for my desktop. Does anyone have any ideas how one could do that?

The DIY Version (not too OT)

[Embedded Geek]

There's an organization called Freecycle that does a (nonprofit) variation on this theme:

The Worldwide (!) Freecycle Network is open to all cities and to all individuals who want to "recycle" that special something rather than throw it away. Whether it's a chair, a fax machine, piano or an old door, feel free to post it. Or maybe you're looking to acquire something yourself! One constraint: everything posted must be free.

The site is organized by cities and most of the chapters seem to be yahoo groups, so you can't do online browsing (now there's an idea for Ebay: a "free to a good home" service for nonprofits [subject to verification and limited so as not to dent their cash flow, of course]). Still, it's a neat alternative to the landfill.

More than just LCD recycled

[Dan East]

The summary is not quite accurate. According to the article practically the entire notebook was reused, not just some "old LCDs". They more or less converted the (old but unused) notebooks' form factor into a wooden frame layout and added a $30 WiFi PCMCIA card. I would assume they removed the keyboard, battery and CD-ROM / floppy drive, but kept all of the rest of an already whole sytem. So they would be saving far more than just the cost of a new LCD per unit.

Also, purchasing a couple hundred old but unused notebooks of one specific model in bulk is hardly dumpster diving.

Yes, they were able to undercut the competition by utilizing a rare low-cost resource, thus "suceeding" in an existing market. But how does that translate into future business success now that they have to compete on a level playing ground with their competitors?

Dan East