Mining e-waste: The New Gold Rush?

From April 2007 to February 2008, the city of Odate, Japan
gathered about 17 tons of e-waste (according to a report from Harufumi Mori in Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper). The gadgets collected range from broken appliances to hair dryers to cell phones -- all too small to fall under the scope of recycling laws in Japan. By putting collection bins outside supermarkets and community centers the city diverted small electronics from landfills and turned their e-waste into cash.

After looking through just over one-third of the waste, Mori reports that Odate might find as much as half a kilogram of tantalum, one kilogram of gold, and as much as 4 kilograms of silver and palladium. All of this in less than one year of collections in a city of 80,000 in a country with over 127 million residents. Imagine what a city the size of New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles could recover?

The United States generates more e-waste than any other nation, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some of that waste is recycled. For example, steel, aluminum and copper are often stripped from outdated machines and reused in newer models.

But even recycled parts come at a price. An estimated 50 to 80 percent of e-waste collected in the United States for recycling is exported to areas such as China, India or Pakistan, where workers taking apart the old machines are handling toxic chemicals that can pose serious health problems.

Some manufacturers are beginning to assume greater responsibility for what happens to their products after they become obsolete. For example, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, IBM, and Sharp have programs to collect old computers, monitors, televisions, and other electronics.
Japan and the European Union have adopted progressive e-waste recycling laws. The European parliament approved legislative mandates to require manufacturers to cover the recycling and collection costs for their own take-back programs.

Europe's Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive are setting the global standard for computer recycling. Under the RoHS initiative, any manufacturer who wants to do business in Europe has to produce lead-free products.

The Computer Report Card from Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition says that some U.S. companies have a double standard when it comes to recycling. While some companies have implemented recycling policies in the European Union and Japan, where such programs are mandated, they've yet to do so in the United States.

Our favorite resource for recycling information is Earth 911 - your one-stop shop for all you need to know about reducing your impact, reusing what you’ve got and recycling your trash. Earth 911 was founded in 1991 and started off as a hot line for recycling. It has grown into a mature, intelligent and attractive site. They also maintain a bilingual hot line, 1-800-CLEANUP.

The Earth 911 recycling database can help you find over 100,000 recycling locations across the country. With information provided by local governments, industry insiders, organizations and everyday consumers, you can recycle hundreds of products from packing peanuts to computers.

Let one of your goals for 2009 to be learning the four R’s: (From Earth 911)

Reduce: Waste reduction is the process and the policy of reducing the amount of waste produced and ultimately disposed. Waste reduction or waste minimization, also known as source reduction, is simply reducing waste at its source. In the waste management hierarchy the most effective policies and processes are mentioned first. Waste minimization is also strongly related to efforts to minimize resource and energy use. The fewer materials used for the same production output means that less waste is produced.

Reuse: When you use an item more than once, it is called reuse. Conventional reuse is where an item is used again for the same function, like when you refill a coffee cup instead of throwing it in the trash. It is also reuse when an item is reused for a different purpose, like when you use a 2-liter soda bottle as a seed-starter greenhouse.

Reuse helps the planet, but it also saves money. Today’s consumer is becoming more aware of environmental concerns and this awareness is gradually changing business and government policies, and consumer attitudes about what the convenience of a disposable society is really costing us.

Recycle: Recycling is the processing of making used items into new raw material. Recycling conserves our natural raw material resources, and typically uses much less energy. Saving energy means that smokestack emissions of greenhouse gas and other pollutants like mercury are reduced at the power plant, and our energy sources are not depleted as quickly. Recycling is critical to today’s waste management programs.

React: Conscientious Earth citizens have the ability to learn about the right things to do. After you learn, get out of your chair and actually do something about it: React! Make today the day YOU start to do something about it.

Until next time…become the change you imagine.

I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Christmas does not have to be a burden on the environment. With a little effort and imagination, we can reduce the environmental impact of the holiday season. Here are some ideas to help celebrate the season while caring for the earth:

Food & drink at Christmas
1. Buy local, seasonal, winter vegetables (these include sprouts, carrots, cabbage, leeks, onions, parsnips, and potatoes).
2. Support your local farmers' market (visit Local Harvest to find out your nearest farmers' market )
3. Look for meat from traditional breeds of sheep, beef or poultry, raised naturally and locally. Ask your butcher about the history of the animal. If you choose a bird opt for free-range organic or even try an alternative like goose.
4. If you can't buy local, buy fair trade products such as fruit, nuts and chocolate
5. Buy wine with real corks - not a single tree is cut down in their production and it is one of the most environmentally-friendly industries possible. The Natural Cork Quality Standard website has more information and guidance.
6. Try to buy food and drink packaged in materials that can be recycled in your area, such as paper and glass and avoid disposable items on the Christmas table such as paper serviettes.
7. Compost vegetable leftovers – try vermiculture
8. Use 100% recycled aluminum foil or baking paper for Christmas cakes

Christmas Trees, decorations, cards & wrapping paper
1. If you buy a real Christmas tree, check that it has the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) logo, which guarantees it has been sustainably farmed.
2. Buy a small pot grown tree and plant it out after Christmas.
3. Buy LED Christmas lights which, as well as lasting longer than conventional lights, use can 80% less energy.
4. Solar powered Christmas lights are also a great alternative - they can be bought in a number of online shops now, just search for them in Google.
5. Use old cards to make gift tags.
6. Send an E-card.
7. Wrapping paper is often treated, colored and sometimes covered in glitter which isn't easy to recycle - choose cards and wrapping which contain recycled paper.
8. Check to see if your community recycles real trees.
9. Recycle cards and wrapping paper.

May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace,

The gladness of Christmas give you hope,

The warmth of Christmas grant you love.

Until next time...become the change you imagine.

The landfill blues

How many times have we driven down a street and seen a perfectly good (albeit used) piece of furniture on the side of the road, or sitting in (or outside of) a dumpster? Multiply that by hundreds of streets in your town, tens of millions of streets across the country, and hundreds of millions of streets around the globe. How much good stuff is ending up in our landfills? What about all the people who need that stuff but can’t afford to buy it? What if there was a way to save the planet and help people at the same time?

The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,593 groups with 5,760,000 members across the globe. This is an entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) free items in their own local areas. It's all about reusing and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer and membership is free. To sign up, go to Freecycle.org and find your community by entering it into the search box or by clicking on “Browse Groups” above the search box.

If you are handy with tools, have knowledge of upholstering or refinishing, why not cruise the neighborhood and retrieve items you see on the side of the road? If they can be reclaimed, why not fix them up and donate them to someone in need? If you don’t know of anyone personally, contact your local United Way or other charitable organization. There are many people in need who don’t have the resources, or skills, to obtain essential items for their homes.

What a wonderful way to turn a hobby into a means to help people, and the environment! Only recently, have people developed a “disposable” mentality with regard to material objects. In the past, furnishings, clothing, housewares, etc. were of good quality, expensive, and treasured. Items that were damaged, or worn, were repaired or refurbished – not thrown away! Average people had few possessions and those were well cared for and made to last for as long as possible.

It is time that we went back to producing goods of quality, rather than cheap, disposable merchandise that clog our landfills at an alarming rate. It is time to embrace a different design philosophy.

In their pioneering book “Cradle to Cradle”, William McDonough and Michael Braungart explain how waste equals food. This principle explains how products can be designed from the beginning to provide nourishment for something new (after the products’ useful life has ended). They can be conceived as biological nutrients that will easily re-enter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins – or as technical nutrients that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles. Rather than being recycled, these products can be down-cycled into low-grade materials and uses.

Not only will this benefit the planet, it could positively impact the global economy, as well. By incorporating this principle in world-wide global manufacturing practices, we could reduce the strain on natural resources, reduce landfill sizes, and create new jobs in recycling, and remanufacturing.

Take a minute to think about ways that you can reclaim items in your own home, or those you find abandoned by the side of the road. Someone in need will thank you! The earth will bless you!

Until next time...become the change you imagine.

How to make trash disappear and the Zero Waste concept

Humans are the only creatures on earth that create waste. While there are many who would argue the validity of that statement, if waste can be defined as:

1. having served or fulfilled a purpose; no longer of use.
2. rejected as useless or worthless;
3. pertaining to material unused by or unusable to the organism

then this statement is, in fact, true.

In the natural world everything is used, and reused, in a continuous cycle. A description of this process is Waste = Food, which was coined by William McDonough. In his book Cradle to Cradle, with Michael Braungart, McDonough explains how products can be designed from the beginning to provide nourishment for something new, once the products' usefulness is over.

There are several ways we can begin to reverse the damage our "cradle to grave" mentality has caused:

1. Buy natural, organic products that can be returned to the earth.
2. Recycle, reuse, repurpose non-organic products.
3. Take toxic waste products (i.e. chemicals) to an approved disposal location.
4. Instead of throwing away items you no longer want: give them to needy individuals or families, donate them to charity thrift stores, join Freecycle and list them in your local area
5. Start a recycling, reuse system at your job.
6. Tell companies you buy products from to reduce wasteful packaging.
7. Get Rid of Junk Mail (go to ecofuture.org)
8. Sign up for paperless billing.
9. Paper and food trash can be composted; plastics, aluminum, and glass can be sold to recycling centers.

What else can be done? I'd love to hear from you!

"Teach others by example. Share what you learn. Become the change you imagine." --Izmet

Some good environmental news from The Non-Toxic Times Newsletter: "In Congress, the House approved new legislation on September 4th that would both create a federal program and provide funding for research into sustainable alternatives to hazardous chemical products and manufacturing technologies. The bill, H.R. 2850: the Green Chemistry Research and Development Act of 2007, would provide $165 million in grant money over the next three years to be distributed by the EPA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards &Technology, and the Department of Energy. These grants would go to a variety of destinations including individual scientists, university and industry collaborations, federal laboratories, and schools training students in green chemistry."

It also mentions in the article that Wal-Mart is the company leading the way in reducing product packaging by 5% and making packaging out of recycled and recyclable materials. That would result in huge savings on packaging, shipping, and the amount of waste headed to landfills. To read more about organizations dedicated to saving the planet click here.

All of us at some time or other has wondered why a small item was encased in some huge plastic package. You know, the ones you can never get open! Communicate with the retailers you do business with and let them know that you support the initiative for less wasteful packaging. Click here to read the rest of the Non-Toxic Times article.

Until next time....become the change you imagine.