SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — Most Americans think they’re helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they’re contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.
“It is being recycled, but it’s being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine,” said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong authorities. “We’re preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world.”
Eight states, including five this year, have passed such laws, and companies such as Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony now take back their products at no charge. Some require consumers to mail in their old gear, while others have drop-off centers. HP says it also now designs its equipment with fewer toxic materials and has made it easier to recycle.
Personally, I do agonize a bit about where my electronic junk is going, thus it sits in my office. The real key here is what HP is doing with making it easier to recycle their products. The nature of technology makes it hard to buy an item with the notion that it won’t be surpassed in a relatively small number of years. You can’t just buy less often with some technology. It’s not realistic. You need to address the problem from a different angle and make what you’re selling more easily turned into something else once its usefulness has ended.
Yes Virginia, I’m back. And in case you couldn’t figure it out from my last post, I have returned from a glorious 7 day / 6 night vacation at the most magical place on Earth. But before I regale you with my many adventures, observations, quips, and longings to return, I’m going to post a Greenie item from my email.
From the Grist List, we have 15 Green Business Founders.
One of my favorites - Newman’s Own Organics. Why? because their wet cat food smells like food, not like ass and death dipped in snot (this is a vague approximation). A majority of the companies are ones that I have not heard of, which is always a great thing to find. The one that makes me the hungriest - Pizza Fusion. The one that makes me want to starve - Clif Bar.
Scheck it out!
So who is this guy? It doesn’t really matter. His name is Hayden Hamilton and he lives somewhere out in the great western yonder of the country. What IS important is that he started a company called GreenPrint. What’s even more exciting is that his company has a product called GreenPrint that allows you to easily eliminate unwanted pages when you’re printing.
So, say you’re on some questionable web site and you have purchased some questionable material. Now, the questionable nature of this transaction doesn’t bother you and you’d like a paper copy of your receipt. What DOES bother you, is the idea of wasting paper and, as we all know, printing on the web is marred with mounds of wasted paper holding footers and shit that we just don’t need. We might be inclined to throw out these papers.
Well, what this software does is let you view what you are going to print first and then eliminate those wasted pages from the job. Pretty swank. It also offers the ability to make PDFs which is another way to cut down on waste.
The site offers a little video demo.
So why am I in love you ask? Well, merging whimsical graphics with a cool idea and slick technology which you THEN put a green spin on - oh my gosh, I can barely contain myself.
So yes, this IS the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night - what to do with that old computer, what to do with all of this other nebulous electronic crap…
And here, I’m not the only one. Two sites to fill that worry spot in my heart:
GreenerComputing.com
MyGreenElectronics.org
I’ll admit that there is something a little creepy about a man-made park called EarthPark, but from what I have seen, I would still love to go there.
From Grist, “A 70-acre indoor rainforest and eco-learning center is set to be built in the most obvious of places: central Iowa. Opening Earth Day 2010, Earthpark will be part of a development that includes condos, a resort hotel, and a water park. Earthy!”
From Grist (I can look past the Monopoly thing):
“In one Florida county, taking out the garbage just got interesting. At a soon-to-be-built landfill, superpower-wielding workers will vaporize trash with “lightning-like plasma arcs.” By their powers combined, the gaseous byproducts will run the facility and a nearby Tropicana plant, and the solids will be used to build roads. Talk about taking pollution down to zero …”
Anything that uses the phrase “plasma arcs” gets my attention. It sounds soo hot… and it IS.
Sigh… I hope we’re on our way to less poo, but only time will tell.
Meet Washboard Eco Laundry of Portland, Maine.
“We have attempted to create a new model for the coin-laundry industry by designing our business around the goal of minimizing the environmental impact of cleaning clothes. We accomplish this goal in several ways: we use a solar system to generate the majority of our hot water; we have the most energy-efficient washers on the commercial market (all front-loaders); we have a comprehensive recycling program; we only sell detergents from bulk containers to reduce packaging waste; and we sell several natural, non-petroleum-based detergents and fabric softener and only offer a non-chlorine bleach alternative, called sodium percarbonate. In partnership with another local cleaner, we offer wet cleaning, which is a water-based alternative to chemical dry cleaning. Our building was remodeled using many local and low-impact materials and includes lots of windows for natural lighting, a radiant floor-heating system, four times the typical insulation found in commercial buildings, and a high-efficiency lighting system.”
The full interview from Grist can be found here:
Here are some excerpts from a pretty good article from Grist Magazine (slowly becoming my 2nd most used resource next to CNN) on some of the positive outcomes of Castro’s regime.
“Cuba is the only country in the world to have converted to organic agriculture in less than 10 years.”
“Castro knows how to make lemonade. After the collapse, when the Soviets were unable to supply fuel and the giant autopista (think: autobahn) running the length of the country lay empty because no one had access to gas, he bought 1.2 million bicycles from China and manufactured 500,000 more, distributing them to the people. Most didn’t know how to ride, and accidents were common. But the government gave classes, and people got the hang of it…”
“The government also passed a law dictating that government vehicles must pick up as many hitchhikers as they can fit.”
And, of course, one of my favorites…
“Cuba’s system has obvious flaws, but many charges against Castro — suppression of dissent, torture of enemies, backroom dealings with nefarious world players — can be made against certain other leaders as well… With some members of the Bush administration champing at the bit to widen their democracy experiment to Cuba, let’s remember how audacious it is to assume that there is only one true way.”
The full story can be read here.
