node in the waste cycle
Our school council supported the notion that college needs to consider the sustainable disposal of old hardware. Tossing it into the domestic rubbish or dump master was no longer an acceptable option. If there is no residual value, I can now pay for computer equipment to be recycled instead of pretending that the heavy metals do not exist and tossing it into landfill. We do a shuttle run to a merchant that disassembles the broken hardware.
If we accept the notion that the supplier has a responsibility in the waste cycle, then schools need to consider the final destination for their old hardware. We already see this with printer cartridges and mobile phones. The prickly issue for me now is, should we take back old or obsolete hardware that was donated or sold in good faith to students? If we don't accept this responsibility, then we have to accept the practice of dumping toxic electronic waste in third world countries that don't have in place either the technology or systems for correct disposal.
I must admit, when a student turned up with a "useless old computer" that refused to work, we managed to build a working Xubuntu Linux system he took back home as a second family computer. In an increasingly disposable world, the notion of "No hardware left behind" is appealing. Golly, I even remember many years ago whenJohn Widmer managed to get the Internet running on some donated IBM XT computers.
I am greatly pleased and encouraged by the efforts by Kevork to spend those extra hours in his own time to build up a batch of working systems and taking responsibility for its decomissioning, instead of tossing it all into the dump master. The return may be small but the investment in the future is priceless. Well done :-) Our sister school in the Cook Islands doesnt want any more junk as throwing it into the sea is no longer an option. They are just looking to extend the life of the hardware they buy and the hardware they have. This is why they are exploring stuff like Xubuntu, where we picked up the "No hardware left behind" message. http://www.xubuntu.org/
Chap from GreenPC that I spoke to indicated that they established an Info Timor enterprise in a tin shed and trained six East Timorese students for six months in Australia to run a purpose-built IT Centre is being designed to allow more Ubuntu Certificate-level training to be delivered. I was really proud to read what they are doing to help empower a community with this free libre open source software and the donated hardware.
http://tulundili.infoxchange.net.au This link to the computer recycling Byteback page from Boroondara council is fantastic and an outstanding example of what every city council should be striving for. Sounds like a good letter campaign that IT student can initiate to encourage a similar service with their local council. The guess the thing we need to emphasis to the college admin is that it is now never an option to fill the school dump master with toxic eWaste. If it costs the school money and time to correctly dispose of this waste, then so be it. I might use some of the new suggestions posted here to update the VITTA eWaste position statement
http://www.vitta.org.au/pubs/infonet/view.php?id=250 (may need VITTA website login)