Tracking Electronic Waste

Do you want to know where electronic waste will likely end up in? 

Nonprofit organisation, Basel Action Network (BAN), working with the help of MIT Senseable City Lab, put GPS trackers on e-waste in USA and discovered that much of it ended up in Asia.  You can view the interactive map from "e-Trash Transparency Project" at the following link:

http://senseable.mit.edu/monitour-app/

BAN  issues “e-Steward” certification to recyclers who are able to handle these materials with social responsibility and use environmentally sound practices.  The idea is to keep e-waste out of landfills and to prevent electronics waste from being exported to countries with poor regulations as they can be harmful to their environment and the people put in place to work on them.

The tracking device has enabled BAN to audit recyclers they have certified.  As a result of this investigation, the “e-Steward” certification for Total Reclaim, a Seattle-based e-waste recycler, has been revoked.

That is how Dell discovered that even some of their used electronic items have been exported to Asia. Dell has a "Reconnect program", which encourages consumers to donate electronic items that they no longer use. These should have been collected, refurbished and sold at an affordable cost to those in need or "recycled responsibly" through their partnership with Goodwill Industries, a nonprofit organization. The "Reconnect program" creates green jobs and support Goodwill's efforts to help disadvantaged people and those with disabilities by providing education, training and career services. It looks like there is a loophole somewhere that Dell needs to fix.

If this bothers you, what else can you do with your used electronic devices that you plan to replace? Randy Sarafan has some ideas and you may be inspired to start a new hobby after reading his book, "62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer: (And Other Discarded Electronics)". 

The Concept House Village in Heijplaat village, Rotterdam

We always talk about sustainable living but what are we doing to get us there?

In Netherlands, they started the ball rolling through Concept House Institute of Building and Business Administration (CHIBB). They built experimental sustainable house designed by Rotterdam University students and researchers in Concept House Village located at Heijplaat village. The idea is to explore innovative housing concepts in a bid to develop sustainable living communities.

Dutch stylist, Helly Scholten, was selected to run the experiment by living full time in an "oversized greenhouse" with rooftop vegetable garden for 3 years. She and her family members have been there since 2015 and you can view photos and read about their experience at the following links:

Living in a greenhouse: One family's experiment in sustainable living
Helly Scholten
Instagram

You can find out more about Concept House Village at the following links:

Creating Comfortable Climatic Cities
Concept House Village Brochure

Let us hope that decision makers in our own country will also work on the aspects of starting sustainable living communities locally. Meantime, what ideas can we adopt to lead a sustainable life? 

According to author, Sam Richards, of "Sustainable Living: Guide to Living a Fully Self-Sustainable Life That Will Eliminate All of Your Expenses", they are many things that we can learn to do for our home, like learning to conserve water by installing a rainwater harvesting system, learning to grow our own food and preserving our bountiful.  For the more ambitious, we can also learn to generate our own solar energy.



Another book that you can read up on is, "The Integral Urban House: Self Reliant Living in the City", which is considered the bible of urban homesteading. The book is written through the experience of living in the Integral Urban House set up in Berkeley, California by Sim Van der Ryn, Farallones Institute, Helga and Bill Olkowski.

Retirement "cave" home. Learn to build your own.

What can you do to reduce the cost of managing a house when you retire?

Steve Rees could still remember how cool it was inside the caves he played in as a kid and decided that he will live off-grid in his make do cave by burying two shipping containers.



His retirement "cave" home attracted so much interest that he decided to write a book about how it was build and you can find it selling at


It is great to know that being kind to the environment by conserving energy and by re-using what could have been abandoned material can also be kind to the pocket.

When price of oil drops...

When price of oil drops, not everyone will be rejoicing.

Let's take a look at the plastics recycling industry.  Plastics are made from oil.  When oil price slumps, it is cheaper for manufacturers to buy freshly made plastic.  We will see less used plastic material being collected for recycling. 

So, all the more reasons for us to consider using less plastic in our product or packaging. If you need some help, read this book, "Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too", by Beth Terry.