Where Are Your Old Cellphones?
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
Our friends over at INFORM have started a new series called The Secret Life. First on the agenda: cellphones. These devices that have totally transformed communication over the past 20 years have also become too-synonymous with “disposable” leading to their being sent by the millions to landfills and incinerators. And yet, many, if not all, of the materials used to make them are reclaimable and/or recyclable.
INFORM has put together a great 5 minute video about the need for more cellphone recycling, while also showing in some detail what happens to these phones during the recycling process. We encourage you to check out their website, watch the video, and then take those old phones out of your junk drawer and find a way to recycle them (they provide the info on how to do just that, of course).
In addition, this seems like a great time to remind everyone about the Greener Gadgets Conference coming up this Friday, February 1st. Our recent Green Renter with conference co-chairs Marc Alt and Jill Fehrenbacher was a great overview of the need to re-think the design process for digital technology, complete with some great examples like the BOGOlight that the audience got to pass around and test out. We’ll have a video version of their presentation on our site soon, but you can register for the conference right now.
Cellphone image by Chris Jordan, taken from inhabitat.com
Posted in Pollution, Products, Recycling, Sustainability, Technology, Waste | Permalink
New Video of Green Renter Lecture Up Online
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
For the past three years, our Green Renter lecture series has drawn New Yorkers from all over the five boroughs to Solar 1 to learn about green issues that confront urban dwellers, including programs on recycling, local food, urban planning and the redevelopment of New York Harbor’s native oyster population, among many others. Now, even if you weren’t able to attend in person, you can see the presentation and hear the lectures online! The first available Green Renter is the Sheridan Swap, a plan for transforming the Sheridan Expressway into green space, presented by the South Bronx Watershed Alliance. You can check it out here, and we encourage you to come back often as we’ll be adding more Green Renters very soon.
The next Green Renter will be held Tuesday, January 15 at 7:00pm. The topic is “NYC Greener Gadgets Conference Preview”; come see the fantastic new green electronic products that will be shown at the conference being held in NYC on February 1, and get tips on how to recycle your old cell phone and iPod.
Posted in Education, New York City, Recycling, Renewables, Solar One | Permalink
Show Support for Upcoming eWaste bill in NYC
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
With all the new gizmos coming into apartments as holiday gifts, an equally impressive stream of outdated electronics gets jettisoned to make room in tight apartments. The toxic metals in these throw away items is something we have written about before, and are something that politicians are taking more notice of.
We wrote about the bill in October, and it looks as if City Council is nearing a decision on a great step forward to making electronics recycling easier and more widespread. It would require manufacturers to be responsible for the recycling of increasing percentages of their products–25% in 2012 and 65% in 2018 (NYT). Many people are very excited about this and are encouraging emails and phone calls to the City Council. Heads up from no less than No Impact Man himself. (Read his post for the contact info)
Posted in Products, Recycling, Waste | Permalink
Power Users
Friday, November 30th, 2007
Electronics are definitely the ‘it’ gift this holiday season–one of Amazon’s featured gifts for preschoolers is a frog with a keyboard on it. But there are many ways to get great gifts while keeping other things in mind.
All video game consoles are not created equal. Nintendo was recently castigated by Greenpeace for their lack of transparency on toxics and recycling, which took Nintendo by surprise. But their Wii game console uses only 17w of power–roughly 10x less than the other two hot consoles the PS3 and the Xbox 360, which both use close to 200w. If you are shopping for your first console, consider a last-gen device like the PS2 or GameCube, which both use less than 30w, and will be cheap and have lots of games available.
In the market for a new TV? LCD screens, in general, use almost 70% less energy than their tube counterparts. Plasma TVs use a bit more, and rear-projection TVs used the least. But some used way more vampire current than others. A Sharp TV set used a whopping 72w in standby mode. Check out this CNET chart for different models.
“Laptops use half the energy–and are twice the fun,” boasts a ConEdison subway ad. Laptops are designed to use much less power because they must be able to run on a battery. But new laptops (which have been outselling desktops since 2006) have capabilities similar to a desktop–without the power consumption. A new laptop will use around 45w, compared with 200w for a speedy desktop.
And as always, recycle and freecycle any old electronics that are taking up space in your apartment.
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Recycling | Permalink
Happy America Recycles Day!
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
Via Treehugger. To find out more, visit the National Recycling Coalition website.
Posted in Recycling | Permalink
Promoting Re-use at NYC.gov
Monday, November 5th, 2007 Coming on the heels of the news that New York City is conducting a modest expansion of its public recycling program, comes the new NYC Stuff Exchange. I believe that this is a new endeavor building off of the Dept. of Sanitation’s Wastele$$ program, and it promises to help New Yorkers find ways to donate/sell/buy/rent/repair their “gently used” items of all kinds. They are also hosting a calendar of events to keep track of the various book fairs, donation drives and swap meets taking place around the city. Should be a valuable resource as we gear up for a holiday season full of parties, good cheer, gifts, leftovers and a whole lot of extra waste.These are small steps for a city that has not made much progress at improving its recycling and diversion rates, and that lags well behind cities like Seattle and San Francisco, but at least there are steps being taken. We’d still like to see the adoption of some ambitious goals (up to, and including Zero Waste), as PlaNYC was largely silent on the matter of waste and the cost of disposing on NYC’s trash in the far-flung landfills of Virginia, South Carolina and beyond is only going to get more expensive (and carbon intensive - all those truck miles!).
For more options for re-use and waste prevention, check out Freecycle NYC , Wa$tematch, and the NYC Materials Exchange Development Program.
And we’d be totally remiss to not remind you (as always) that Build It Green! is the place to go for building materials, paint and a whole lot more at deeply discounted prices. Wine cooler, anyone?
Posted in Build It Green, New York City, Recycling, Waste | Permalink
E-waste recycling: Do it.
Thursday, October 25th, 2007 The recycling of electronic waste is on the brink of hitting main-stream in the United States. Most of it in NYC is done by large institutions using recyclers like Per Scholas, but the DSNY is also getting in on the game to bring the good policy to individuals. Go to our recycling page to learn to save your e-waste for convenient collection days and places.This video was made by GOOD Magazine.
Posted in New York City, Recycling | Permalink
BiG! Press & Job Opening
Thursday, October 18th, 2007 Build It Green! gets a nice mention in today’s New York Times as part of an article on the growing trend of home deconstruction. As an alternative to demolition, deconstruction is a great way to reduce the flow of material into landfills, to reduce the use of virgin building materials and even to save some money. Among the more interesting points from the article:Today, according to the Building Materials Reuse Association, up to 85 percent of the average house can be recycled or reused; the hard part is harvesting the materials in a way that preserves their integrity
. . . . .
While the standard demolition quotes were around $25,000, the couple spent $38,000 to have a contractor….unpiece it over six weeks last summer. They expect to come out even or better after selling door hardware, windows, appliances and other components at a salvage auction and reaping a tax deduction by donating the rest to a reuse store.
. . . . .
Build it Green! NYC, a reuse shop in Astoria, sells sets from nearby film studios alongside items rescued from residential demolitions. Recently, $25 diner stools from “The Knights of Prosperity,” a short-lived ABC show, were for sale alongside $40 doors from “The Sopranos” and a set of cherry-finish kitchen cabinets removed from an Upper East Side apartment.
We encourage anyone considering a home improvement project to check out the great (and cheap!) stuff that Build It Green! has to offer. And if you’re interested helping to broaden the market for reuse in the NYC area, they’re also hiring a warehouse & sales associate.
Posted in Build It Green, Green Building, Recycling, Waste | Permalink
Seattle Artist Captures “Slow-Motion Apocalypse” of Consumer Culture
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
Plastic Bags, 2007- A picture of 60,000 plastic bags, used every 5 seconds in the US
Photographer Chris Jordan, recently featured on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central, takes pictures of the things we throw away. He has photographed crushed cars, cigarette butts, aluminum cans and oil drums, among many, many others. His latest exhibit, “Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait”, gives the viewer a queasy-but-fascinated sense of the immense scale of what we throw away. Looking at the number of plastic bags we use every 5 seconds (60,000!) could really make you think twice at the grocery store.
Check out more of his beautiful, disturbing work at chrisjordan.com.
Posted in Art, Pollution, Recycling, Waste | Permalink
Movement on NYC Electronics Recycling Bill?
Thursday, October 11th, 2007 Introduced in February of 2006, NYC City Council Intro 104 - the Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act - seemed on track to make New York City the first city in the U.S. with a law governing the disposal of electronic waste. Sponsored by Councilmen Gennaro and McMahon, the bill would require manufacturers of consumer electronics to recycle products they’ve sold when buyers are looking to discard them, thereby keeping them out of landfills and/or 3rd world countries where they often contribute to environmental degradation and damage the health of those exposed to them. While some states like Maine and Washington have enacted laws, the U.S. government has made no motion to try to come up with a plan like those in Japan, South Korea and the E.U. leaving up to state and local governments to act. And action is important in an era where we are cycling through computers, TVs and other electronics at ever-increasing speeds. In a city of 8 million people, all that waste adds up quickly to create a huge hazard*.At any rate, the bill has languished for the past year or so, but the word coming down the pike is that it might soon be put up to vote. If signed into law, the program will likely take at least a year or two to set up, but it would get us on the right track of reducing our waste stream and stop the practice of sending these dangerous materials to out-of-state landfills, or out of the country entirely where they become someone else’s burden. Watch this space for updates on the status of the bill. For more information on the bill and electronics recycling, download this document from NRDC [PDF].
In the meantime, if you have electronics to recycle you can drop them off during any open hours at Build It Green! (and check out their fine assortment of building materials and home furnishings while you’re at it) or check out the schedule of events coming up around the city courtesy of the Lower East Side Ecology Center.
* In fact, this waste is considered to be hazardous by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. However, household waste of this type is exempt from the more stringent regulations imposed on commercial and industrial entities, allowing residents to simply put their old CRT or console TV out at the curb with the rest of their garbage. This despite the fact that these items are loaded with PCBs, mercury, lead, cadmium and other potentially dangerous materials, not to mention lots of recyclable metals and plastics.
Posted in Legislation, Pollution, Recycling, Waste | Permalink
