Green Tech

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 For example, steel, aluminum and copper are often stripped from outdated machines and reused in newer models.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 like the ethos behind the Venus project quite alot. But I tend to be wary of projects and intitiatives that rely on advanced technology to solve our problems, it always seems to be just around the corner and in the meantime all we have to do is drive a little less, recycle, and eat less meat.

The one thing I totally agree with is that our culture needs to be totally redesigned. I just happen to believe we need to do it now with available technology that can radically change the way we live our lives. I expect there will be an intersection of the two approaches. In the meantime we need to do quite alot more than the minimum in our personal lives.

Today I was struggling with my solar powered sculpture project. It's coming together but there have been some technical areas I just didn't know how to make work. The art/techy types I emailed weren't responding...despair was beginning to set in. Finally, today I called, yes just got on the phone with, Therese who I had been referred to by Tony and she sent me to Guy. Guy is the guy I would be in an alternate universe. Look at his website. He has designed all kinds of amazing stuff. Created his own art and collaborated with other artists. He's built a solar hot water system. He lives in gorgeous Maine and to top it off he answered his phone and gave me several easy answers to problems I could not solve in my brain at 4 am! I heart Guy!

--
Leah Korican
website: www.leahkorican.com
blog: www.leahkorican.blogspot.com

I remember when I first heard about the Internet back in the early 90’s. Everyone was excited, because the future had arrived – we were becoming the “global village” that media ecology pioneer, Marshall McLuhan had spoken about in the 1960s. Intuiting the incredible potential, we had no way of knowing really what would be possible, and what it would look like.

My first encounter with the Internet was a seminar I went to with a friend. The seminar was given by an Internet service based in San Francisco called The WELL, which is short for Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, that started in 1985, as a dial up bulletin board system and became one of the first dial up internet service providers. The WELL became famous for fostering incredible forums and online communities. The internet looked very different back then – it was very primitive, and you had to know a little bit of programmer language. I got my first email account with The WELL, and they gave out manuals to each user with instructions and commands just to send and receive emails. At that point, websites were just on the horizon and it was really complicated to get one set up. Today, millions of people have websites, and we've come to take the Internet for granted. We can send instant messages, watch videos, listen to podcasts, watch webcasts, play games and make music in real time, and more. We even have access the Internet through our cellphones and other PDAs, and it's just assumed that we can access whatever websites we want, whenever we want, anytime of the day or night.

But, the Internet as we know it is threatened. Plans have been in the making for several years now by several large cable and telephone companies; including Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner to change all that. They want to be be Internet gatekeepers -- to be able to regulate the content, and our ability to access it. They want to make big bucks much like the oil companies are now, and they want the internet to be more like a cable TV network like HBO or Showtime, that you subscribe to, where they will be the ones to decide what and when you have access to websites and services. They’ll decide what websites you can access and how fast or slow a website will load, or if it will load at all. These companies want to restrict and control our usage and have complete control. They want to make it impossible for me to write this blog, or for you to read it, and they are spending millions of dollars lobbying the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and Congress to destroy the Internet as we know it. In short they want to take away our freedom, and they want to destroy net neutrality.

What’s net neutrality, you’re probably wondering. Well, it’s short for Network Neutrality, and it has been a part of the Internet since it’s beginning. The Internet was always intended be a neutral network, that means a free and open internet without discrimination. It prevents Internet providers from blocking or slowing down web content based on the source, who it’s intended for, or who owns the content. Net Neutrality has increased democratic participation globally to a degree that is unprecedented, along with free speech and economic innovation.

You’re probably asking yourself why you haven’t been hearing much if anything about this on the media (TV news, etc.). Think about it. Who owns and controls the media? A few big corporations, the same ones that own or are in bed with the aforementioned ones. It wouldn't make sense to go too public about these plans, so the public can mobilize to protect their freedoms of speech, commerce etc. If Congress gives these telephone and cable companies free range of the Internet, what we take for granted now will be gone forever. It also wouldn't surprise me one bit if spamming, hacking and other Internet crimes start happening to such a degree that our government will be forced to step in and say that it has to curtail more of our freedoms in order to regulate the Internet for the purpose of protecting our safety.

So, what can we do to save the Internet? We can get involved in big or small ways. But, please spread the word and do something now before it's too late. Listed below are just a few things you can do now:

•Tell all your friends about this critical issue while there’s still time.
• Show your support for Internet freedom on your Web site or blog.
•Sign the SavetheInternet.com petition.
•Contact your Congressional representative to support the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act 2008” (HR 5353) to make Net Neutrality the law of the land.
•Become a part of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition. It is made up of hundreds of groups from across the political spectrum, all concerned about keepint the internet free and open.
•Encourage your friends and groups you're part of to sign the "Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007".

Below are a few links to learn more about the issues and how you can get involved to save our Internet.

SavetheInternet.com Coalition
http://www.savetheinternet.com

freepress: reform media, transform democracy
http://freepress.net/node/38873

Net Neutrality Fact Sheet – Common Cause
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1234951

A Guide to Net Neutrality for Google Users
http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html