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Until two weeks ago, I believed that our local council was giving used computers to organizations for reuse and recycling. I based this belief on the Barnet website, http://www.barnet.gov.uk/, which states that office computers and equipment – and I quote – “are collected by organizations for reuse and recycling.”
However, that wasn’t my experience when I took one of the many family PC waste for recycling – or so I thought. If I imagined it would help a poor village in Africa or some other place too hot to mention, I was wrong.
As I walked to the corner where so many of our technological rejects end, I could clearly hear the characteristic sound of a man in the distance.
“Throw it in the scrap mate.”
I turned around with all the dignity a desktop-wearing man can have and pointed out that I believed the council’s policy was to recycle used computers.
“Not old. People keep putting them away with electronics, but we just throw them into the scrap metal anyway. “
I agreed and made a mental note to check this “fact” with the local authorities who seem to be trying so hard to reduce the amount of waste. I did, and I am waiting for a reply to your email from tonight. As I tossed this piece of “scrap” into a gigantic container, I wondered about the fact that until a few years ago such incredibly complicated and clever equipment like this would be someone’s valuable property, possibly even owned by a private company, and definitely cost thousands. But even with the money, I couldn’t get it because the best on the market wasn’t even that fast, just a few years ago.
Today, such an item is simply not good enough, it is not even worth taking it apart so that someone else can take care of it.
The way people behave here, you’d think there are too many computers in the world, but according to Computer Aid International, a charity that distributes computers to developing countries ([http://www.computuraid.org/] )
“The digital divide that currently exists between developed and developing countries is huge. Recent World Bank research shows that in the vast majority of sub-Saharan African countries, there are 5 or fewer computers per 1,000 people. Asian Subcontinent “.
In the UK, more than half of all households have at least one computer, more than ours.
Is there a relationship between our approach to the technology we use and our approach to everything that surrounds us? I think so, but that’s a different topic for another day.
Incidentally, the Council seems to be doing something with the monitors. I saw them loaded onto the pallet at a fairly rapid pace. They have a hard time keeping up with the coming number.
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Source by Clive Margolis