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IBM Offers Computer Recycling
from the nice-to-mom-earth dept.
"Many readers are probably unaware that used electronics, including TVs and monitors, are already categorized as a hazardous waste by the US EPA. Unsafe disposal by any business can lead to some staggering costs. The EPA does not inspect your trash. But if they find your monitor at an unsafe waste site, you are 100% responsible for cleaning up that entire site. They go after everyone who contributed to the site and just keep going until everyone is bankrupt or the site is cleaned. There is no proportional allocation. One PC is enough to be charged the entire site cleanup cost.
Consumers not exempt, but there is no point in prosecuting them. They don't have enough money and the political cost to the EPA is too high.
If you do not already have a suitable electronics disposal plan in place, this may be of interest. Most Massachusetts towns have a recycling plan in place because Massachusetts already prohibits consumer disposal of electronics in the regular trash. There are also a variety of donation programs for usable electronics, although many charities have become rather restrictive. They have been burned by people donating broken useless equipment and forcing the charity to pay the recycling disposal fees."
Re:Good program, but ... (Score:5)
I'm a volunteer at FreeGeek. We actually exchange volunteer hours for the refurbished computers, as opposed to giving them away outright.
The project is new. Our "grand opening" isn't even until this Saturday. (Originally timed for *after the election*, so we could get political officials interested enought to come, ironically.)
We're pulling in a variety of systems, from 8086's on up to dual Pentium Pros. The entire internal network for the organization has been pulled from the trash heap (with a few donations and maybe a couple hundred dollars spent on a DSL router and a few necessary cables.)
We're getting interest from a number of local high tech companies, and we've gotten 501(c)(3) status (that is, the IRS allows donations to us to be tax deductable).
If we can make a go of this, it may be reproduceable in other communities.
It's even worse than you think (Score:3)
Good program, but ... (Score:5)
If said technology is still usable, they will give it, along with training, to a needy individual, in the hopes that this person will be able to use this training to start a career, and get a better life for him/herself.
If the technology you donate has outlived its usefulness, FreeGeek will pick it apart and recycle the basic components or elements. All of this is free of charge, but if you are giving them recyclables, they will ask for a small cash donation (not required).
But of course, Oregon is a pretty green state. Gore barely defeated Ralph Nader for the presidency here, 46% to 6%.
I'm assuming there are other programs like this around the country, but I don't know. What's your city doing?
Re:Recycling wastes even more (Score:3)
Don't just dogmatize your beliefs, investigate them!
Re:Recycling wastes even more (Score:5)
In fact, IBM will likely make a profit on this deal. You PAY them $29.99 for recycling AND they get to sell or reuse the parts? Hey, I'll give you THAT deal! First of all, most solid state parts don't go bad very easily, so there is plenty for them to recover. Secondly, reselling used computers in third world countries can be fairly lucrative.
The company my friend helped run did both of these things, plus metal recovery (which was actually their first business - recovery of gold from electronics assemblies to make jewelry). As with junked cars, the parts value can exceed the value of the assembled system once a certain age is past. However, if the system still works, it may be cheaper to just sell it used rather than expend the energy and time to disassemble it. Thus, this company, and presumably IBM, would dismantle the broken systems for parts or to recover precious metals, and sell the working ones overseas.
My friend's company did this in, if I recall correctly, Indonesia and the Phillipines. Regarding environmental issues. For second-hand resale, the energy and pollution in transport did NOT outweigh the manufacture and transport of new systems (the transport expenditure is basically the same, but you're manufacturing new stuff as well, so how could new be cheaper costwise or environmentally?) For scrapping, the way that the components parts business is set-up, there is already a lot of transport going on, so this was also actually cheaper on both counts. As for metal recovery: not digging new mines, or, worse for an over-mined commodity like gold, lots of test mines and horrible things like sifter mines, gave quite a financial and environmental benefit.
Recycling of many items, especially complex machines, is not only environmentally sound, but can be quite lucrative. IBM is really quite brilliant for doing this, especially since, being IBM, they can do it with minimal additional transport costs?
Why? Most recycling moves through recycling centers. If IBM puts these at their distribution centers, to move the recycled equipment, you're mostly moving it in trucks which otherwise would be returning empty from distribution centers. In terms of home users shipping back via UPS, the financial cost is a little greater, but not really the environmental: again, you're primarily using empty space. Most UPS (and FedEx, and whatever) trucks return mostly empty to their depots. Someone else I knew well wrote the truck routing software for a major "less than truckload" shipper: their business is to resell the empty space on trucks. By making use of "waste" services to move waste goods, you're so far doing quite well financially and environmentally.
The disassembly process is also almost never more expensive or environmentally damaging than manufacturing, and certainly resale of used systems is pretty obviously without any added environmental cost.
If you know anything about the businesses of recycling and shipping, you realize that IBM has made a really smart move: if they know how to manage all this stuff properly (or if they partnered with folks who do), they'll make a profit AND get the PR bonus of being an "environmentally friendly" company.
Kudos to IBM...
Computer recycling (Score:5)
Here are a few facts I dug up:
I've collected some information on computer recycling [crosswinds.net] (the link to documentation of lead's effect on children's brains is bad; here [cdc.gov] is a better one).
Re:Why not Freeboxen? (Score:5)
One of the great delusions of the consumer era is that donating is better than throwing out. It's true, to some extent, but you're making the assumption that people want your old crap. At the one extreme, you have mattress retailers who make you feel good by offering to donate your old mattress to charity. The result in many cases is that you have charities getting flooded with smelly, stained mattresses that they don't know what to do with and have to pay to have hauled away. A 286 may be of value, yes, but really what are most people going to do with it? You'd have to really dig to find software, and then you'd be out in the cold without manuals or support or anyone to turn to. Is it worth getting yourself reliant on software that's ten or more years old? Unfortunately, using old software and hardware is not so easy.
Good idea, But.... (Score:4)
Good idea if your parts are broken. However, if they're not, consider donating or selling them to someone who wants them. There are TONS of computer collectors out there that would LOVE to take computers off your hands for the cost of shipping, provided they work. The older, the better. There's several Computer Shelters [1] [computershelter.org] [2] [jmug.org] and other "low end" computer sites [3] [lowendmac.net] that have hobbyists just searching for parts and machines. There are listservs, Vintage Computer Organizations [vintage.org] and, of course, the effervescent Obsolete Computer Museum [obsoleteco...museum.com] site.
If nothing else, please forward messages of machines available for pickup or shipping to: computershelter@computershelter.org [mailto] and I'll be happy to pass them on to hobbyists who would love to take them off your hands. Some of use the computers for our collections and to learn about older technologies, some of us clean them up and give them to children and impovershed families in our area to give them a piece of technology.
If it's broken, dispose of properly. But if it isn't, please donate and keep them in use!
Corporate "green" or "greed"? (Score:3)
And don't forget Envirocycle's [enviroinc.com] role in this operation. Besides being on their way to a solid monopoly in the computers-recycling industry, they pose a serious unrecognized risk of corporate espionage. As this Science News article [sciencenews.org] pointed out as far back as 1995, in the course of recycling proprietary circuit boards and chips, Envirocycle is being given privileged access to industry leaders' intellectual property. Usually, Envirocycle is instructed to destroy those chips, but just think how little it would cost for a competitor to buy (or even just steal) those chips out from under their own competitors' noses.
Recycling is ultimately a good thing, but there need to be strong industry-ethics standards in place to assure that in saving the environment, we don't give up important rights and privileges. I'm wary that this industry (like so many others) cannot be expected to regulate its own behavior, but the solution is left as an exercise to the reader.
This seems most useful for borken old hardware... (Score:3)
So now I have 70 lbs of useless lead, glass, and plastic sitting there. What should I do with it?
1) Keep it on the floor in my apartment forever
2) Break out the soldering iron and sci.electronics.repair FAQ's, and hope I don't end up with glass shards sticking out of me
3) For $30, IBM will take care of everything.
Maybe I'm crazy, but option number 3 looks pretty appealing...
Not only that... (Score:3)
Re:liar, liar, pants on fire! (Score:3)
So for $30 I can get rid of my VAX-6000? (Score:4)
Recycle Computer Parts? (Score:5)
Odd (Score:3)
Also, what advantages does recycling a computer have over just giving it to a needy person (or something like Goodwill)? I actually own a Color Classic (its a collector's item) that is hooked up to my LAN (OS X PB running natd routing to ppp) and functions wonderfully for my kid to do email and web browsing. Seems like a waste to just dismantle a computer that still works.
Why not Freeboxen? (Score:3)
huge problems with your justification (Score:3)
"We're a wicked throwaway society." Plastic packaging and fast-food containers may seem wasteful, but they actually save resources and reduce trash. The typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American household, but it produces one-third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods in bulk and throw away large portions that are unused, spoiled or stale. Those apples in Dittersdorf's slide, protected by plastic wrap and foam, are less likely to spoil. The lightweight plastic packaging requires much less energy to manufacture and transport than traditional alternatives like cardboard or paper. Food companies have switched to plastic packaging because they make money by using resources efficiently. A typical McDonald's discards less than two ounces of garbage for each customer served -- less than what's generated by a typical meal at home.
Plastic packaging is routinely criticized because it doesn't decay in landfills, but neither does most other packaging, as William Rathje, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, has discovered from his excavations of landfills. Rathje found that paper, cardboard and other organic materials -- while technically biodegradable -- tend to remain intact in the airless confines of a landfill. These mummified materials actually use much more landfill space than plastic packaging, which has steadily been getting smaller as manufacturers develop stronger, thinner materials. Juice cartons take up half the landfill space occupied by the glass bottles they replaced; 12 plastic grocery bags fit in the space occupied by one paper bag.
so, uh, yeah - some Mexican families produce a greater initial bulk of garbage, but it's made up of mostly fresh, unprocessed organic food products. which biodegrade extremely quickly, unlike other "organic" products like paper (or worse packaging materials), which has been processed and condensed so that you're basically waiting for a hyperdense portion of a tree to biodegrade. it also lacks othe natural factors (various critters) that will help the process. that will, of course, take longer than a mostly-eaten apple.comparing easily compostable waste mass to plastic and other petroleum waste that will take (at least) many hundreds of years to biodegrade is an absolute farce - it's comparing apples and plastic wrap, and they're just not the same thing.
similar quality journalism pervades the rest of that article. the plastic waste might be lighter day by day, but it doesn't go away, either. when was the last time anybody saw plastic detritus?
i'd also like to point out that a large part of McDonald's waste is carried out of the store by customers, and thus is probably not accounted for with those numbers.
Batteries need recycling too... (Score:3)
Uncle Vinny's Discount Computer Disposal (Score:3)
Do you still have a Tube TV?
Is there a "windows" key on your keyboard?!
DON'T JUST SIT THERE! Call Uncle Vinny's Discount Computer Disposal for all your Disposal Needs!
We'll take all your unused computer equiment, VCRs, DVD Players and home stereos (working order only, please) for the low, LOW price of $14.99 (shipping not included, taxes may apply).
We'll get rid of that out-of-date P3-500 so you don't have to!
*Uncle Vinny takes no knowledge of what open-source operating system or pr0nographic DVDs may be used on your disposed of junk, but don't you worry! it won't be traceable to you! Call 1-800-COMP-U-GON and wait for the black van at the end of your block!