It’s true when they say “they don’t make ’em like they used too!” Well, we saw the truth in this for April! We saw a lot of CRT televisions dropped off that were still working great. Unfortunately, compared to today’s flat screens, which are light and compact – they don’t stack up anymore and simply take up space. Certain television models are more to repair than to replace. This is the … Read more »
Looking to remove junk from your residence or office? Book online, check out our pricing, or contact us! Our First Two Events Of 2017 Kept Almost 40,000 lbs of E-Waste Out Of Landfills! We held our first two e-waste events of 2017. Our first was March 18th at the Good Shepherd Church in Orleans. We had just under 400 cars roll through the event between 10-4 p.m. We collected over 25000 lbs. of e-waste in 7hrs!! (That’s … Read more »
A commercial entity in Ontario requires an MOE (Ministry of The Environment) licence to transport building and construction waste. You heard right. A business must have an environmental approval from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, if it releases pollutants into the air, land or water OR if it stores, transports or disposes of waste. Junk removal and recycling is a dirty business. That’s why it’s important to … Read more »
2016 ended up being our most successful year with respect to our e-waste events. Without a doubt, 2016 was our busiest year in E-waste. We hosted a total of 23 events for all of last year, with a record of just over 5500 drops offs, and an average of about 250 people per event. We collected and recycled a grand total of 184.5 tons (369,000 lbs) of e-waste from the 23 events. … Read more »
“Art is a great way for the public and volunteers to get into environmentalism.” The Gowanus E-Waste Warehouse—a part of the Lower East Side Ecology Center – is doing something very, very cool. Yazmine Mihojevich, one of the warehouse’s program directors, organized something called “Excavation Wednesday”. It’s an event that allows members of the public to come to the facility and disassemble donated e-waste in an effort to educate the citizenry on … Read more »
The U.S. might be dumping up to 20% of their electronic waste in Asia. Came across this interesting piece in Time last month. Wouldn’t you know it…but up to 20% of American E-waste might in fact be ending up in Hong Kong, of all places. The conclusion stems from an investigation by Basel Action Network (BAN), a U.S.-based NGO focused on protecting the world’s environment from toxic materials. The assessment and … Read more »
There Is An Environmental Cost With The Devices We Depend On Some of the biggest news in the last month has come from the consumer electronics industry. Samsung’s venerable Galaxy Note 7, arguably one of the world’s most popular smart phone phablets, has run into a series of battery issues. Customers were reporting that the phone’s batteries were exploding or combusting randomly during charging. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued on September … Read more »
Came across this great piece in the Kingston Whig Standard. Students at Kingston’s Rideau Heights Public School were taught the value of recycling their used tablets and smartphones through an in-class presentation by the Ontario Electronic Stewardship in a “Recycle Your Electronics” campaign. The school program used both video games and interactive presentations to engage fifth-grade students and educate them on ways to reduce e-waste, as well as the consequences of landfilling it. … Read more »
Annie Leonard has been schooling us on landfill waste, electronic waste, and general environmental irresponsibility since 2010. Her famous “The Story of Stuff” video was a well articulated and accurate rundown of how we affect the planet and the environment through nothing other than our habits of consumer consumption. The film concludes with a call for a green ‘race to the top’ where designers compete to make long-lasting, toxic-free products that … Read more »
What does a small junk removal company in Ottawa and the Mexican central bank have in common? This. Setting the right system boundaries As we move along with doing the ol-cah pol-cah at Junk That Funk, our discussions with the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative have focused on the first draft of our Goal and Scope document. The highlight of the feedback so far has been about our definition of system boundaries – … Read more »