May saw us collect just under 40,000 pounds for recycling. May was interesting for our e-waste stats! We had over 600 drop off’s over 4 full events for the month! We collected 2 whole tons of batteries, hearing aids, and even car batteries! We also recycled over 1000 lbs. of collected wires and cables! More importantly, we’ve been working with a great charity called Their Opportunity, who provide low-income families … Read more »
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 »
“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 »
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 »
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 »
February 10th was a sad day in Ottawa…. Ottawa’s Plasco Energy Group filed for creditor protection and eliminated 80 jobs in nation’s capital, in an effort to restructure. Only 25 employees will remain through the course of this transition and the Trail Rd. facility will no longer operate. This is the latest in a series of challenges for Plasco, which was attempting to build a plant to convert municipal waste to energy. … Read more »
K-cup coffee pods are convenient items in our everyday lives. They allow us to make a single cup of our favourite tea or coffee quickly and efficiently, without the excess of a whole pot of something that goes cold. Here’s the catch. By making each pod so individual and easy to dispose of, packaging increases exponentially—packaging that ultimately ends up in landfills. K-cup pods aren’t recyclable. They’re made of No. 7 plastic – a … Read more »
Bait & Switch: a sales tactic in which a customer is attracted by the advertisement of a low-priced item but is then encouraged to buy a higher-priced one In this case, it’s less of encouragement to purchase something of a higher value, and more like just fraud. Late last year, a Vancouver franchisee of a junk removal company was caught on camera overcharging customers by a significant percentage. Amy Savoie … Read more »
Came across this great article in Wired Online, that outlines just how much a growing issue consumer electronic e-waste is becoming. The manufacturers of a lot of our favourite items aren’t making things any easier, either. Some 41.5 million tons of electronic waste was generated in 2011, and that number is expected to rise to 93.5 million by 2016, according to the research firm MarketsandMarkets. Right now, 70 to 80 percent … Read more »
Orange Drop is a provincial initiative aiming at curbing or eliminating the number of hazardous materials being disposed of in Ontario’s landfills, or poured down sewer drains. Fully funded by industry, the province wide array of drop off sites accept nine materials. The program’s website gives a glimpse into some interesting facts and statistics about the kinds of things Ontarians don’t dispose of properly. The Orange Drop program safely manages nine materials to … Read more »