The e-waste meme
Posted on | February 20, 2009 | 18 Comments
Despite being paid to study “new media” technology I have an aversion to buying it very often. I’ve only read a little bit about what goes on behind the scenes in producing digital gadgets and even this much makes me worried. I don’t like contributing to the possibly corrupt and certainly dangerous conditions faced by workers in the resource-supply and assembly-line sectors of high tech companies. This work is usually off-shore and beyond the attention of the country where I live, and the profession I pursue.
Yesterday I bought a new digital camera for my upcoming travels. I told myself that I need it for work, because images have been a key aspect of the project I’ve been doing for the past few years studying technology use in workplaces and homes. But really I’d been noticing how important photos are to sustaining links with my family, which is spread across several states. Photos give us a sense of intimacy and connection when it’s not physically possible.
Unpacking the camera last night, and feeling the usual sense of awkwardness about what to do with the packaging, cords and instructions that came with it, I decided to confront myself about this notion that I don’t buy very much technology. I set out to discover how much e-waste is in my house already.
I gathered together everything I could find, in cupboards, drawers and unpacked boxes, that relates to media or communication. The only criteria was that it wasn’t being used anymore.
This is the result.
This table of stuff is what I have even after throwing out an old record player, TV and VCR in Brisbane’s hard-rubbish collections last year. I’ve also sent 2 phones and 3 batteries to the Mobile Muster campaign which I hope lots of people already know about. I had to put the videos and cassettes on the floor so that you wouldn’t see my music taste but also so that I didn’t cover the ridiculous amounts of cords, CDs, floppy disks and adapters.
Lots of these things are kept for emotional reasons: as back-ups just in case the current laptop breaks, or I can’t find a file that I may need, one day. Often they stay because I’m too busy (?? lazy) to transfer and save things “properly”: as if there will ever be one way to save everything without it also becoming obsolete.
Other things (the Walkman! the cass-single!) I keep as historical artefacts; as material objects as well as the fact that they remind me of the times and places I’ve used them. I don’t want the idea of them and what they represent to disappear from my life. Like books, they contain experiences I tell myself I will revisit.
But the bulk of it stays because I feel bad throwing it away. That’s certainly true for the 2 extra pairs of earplugs I found this morning that are the result of recent plane trips. I would estimate about 8 pairs of such earplugs lie in various bags around the house for this reason, and precisely none of them make my ipod sound any good.
What do I do with this? Where can I take all of this stuff so that it can be re-used or disposed of responsibly? What do the companies say? What does the government and local council say?
I wonder: can we start a movement to have more of these answers common sense, consistent across states, and easy to find? Can we begin to demand optional extras with our devices (USB cords, for instance), compulsory recycling of packaging and materials, and dedicated facilities and organisations to implement our demands? What can all of us do to make sure we realise the amount of toxic waste in our homes?
This is my first and only attempt at a meme. The instructions are:
Find every piece of technology in your house related to media or communication that you aren’t currently using. Put it on a table. Take a photo. Send it to my email address, or if you blog, trackback to this post. I will share the photos here and compile a report to send to authorities and companies you identify. If you are in Australia or America, Kingston or Kentish Town, Tokyo or Toronto – will you do this? And ask your friends and family to as well. I think it could be amazing what we find, and the conversations we might start. You will also teach me something that “new media” studies currently doesn’t.
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18 Responses to “The e-waste meme”
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February 20th, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
When you say not currently using, what’s the standard? I have tech that I use once every couple of months….
February 20th, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
I guess I mean superseded. No longer using. I’m thinking of all those fixed line phone plugs and cords I have, for instance – there is a whole bag of phone socket adapters on the desk! This counts because even though I tell myself I will get a landline again one day, who knows if I really will. Hence, not currently using.
February 20th, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
i just realised i’ve been carrying around a usb floppy disk drive for a couple of years now. o_O
February 20th, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
The trick is to sell it on eBay *just* before it becomes toxic waste–I missed the boat with my two perfectly functional Nokia phones that have cracked screens and Nokia wont repair
February 20th, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
Tara I remember you as the only person I’ve ever known to own and use mini-discs! I think that makes you the quintessential early adopter
February 20th, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
i have a shoebox of minidiscs from my years at triple zed….
February 20th, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
Oh what a great – and scary – idea. I dread pulling out all my stuff – it’s so precariously stored. Actually separating e-waste from stuff you might need is really hard. I’ll do the meme if I can manage the tidying that it will necessitate…
February 20th, 2009 @ 7:24 pm
Hi Melissa,
I really like this idea. It doesn’t matter how many times I attempt a cull in the spare room, this is the stuff I can’t bring myself to throw out….
February 21st, 2009 @ 5:43 am
I could do this … but I’d need a pretty big table. And, to echo Jill’s comment, doing it fully would pretty much require me to devote a weekend to the major reorganization of space that would be necessary to create that stack. And, like Barry, I would find the “no longer using” aspect of this to be tricky. For instance, I’ve got a tape deck hooked up to my stereo. I use the stereo every so often (though *much* less often than I used to, since now I mostly pump music through my laptop or iPod). But I haven’t actively attempted to listen to a cassette in at least 4-5 years. So would I need to unhook the tape deck and add it to the stack to play this right? Hard to say. (Though that question may have become easier recently, since the CD changer attached to the stereo appears to have given up the ghost in the past month or so. In which case, the entire stereo system might be relegated to the “junk” pile.)
Off the top of my head, though, my likely inventory would include an old desktop (including monitor), a dead laptop, at least two external hard drives in various states of disrepair, a 2d gen iPod, a wireless router that started picking up too much interference from some never-determined source, a VCR that no longer has a TV to go with it, a semi-dysfunctional boombox, an mp3 player I found on the street one day that never got claimed when I posted a craigslist ad about it, a USD floppy drive, an old digital camera (old enough that it uses floppy drives for storage), a Palm Pilot … and virtually all the various cables, power cords, connectors, dongles, mice, keyboards, and chargers that go with that long list of stuff. And that’s not even including the small mountain of different varieties of cable acquired/purchased separately from all the items above because (at the time) they were necessary to actually make use of all that tech.
February 21st, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
Ha – I can tell who the academics are on this comments thread. You know, part of the point of this idea is to show that *no one* thinks they have the time to deal with e-junk – that’s why it accumulates. We seem to find the time to buy it in the first place though. What would it mean to even make that small behavioural change, where we factored in the time involved in disposing obsolete technology prior to buying its replacement?
Anyway, without making things overly complicated, if you need more than a table, that’s obviously worth showing. But don’t let it stop you! The political point is to get the pictures as an outcome – because this is what communicates the problem effectively to the people that need it brought to their attention.
I promise to be patient and extremely grateful to those of you who need a weekend
February 21st, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
i might need a shovel. possibly a hazmat team.
February 21st, 2009 @ 3:58 pm
I’ll gladly make you a deal. You arrange for me to have a weekend that otherwise feels free and open enough to do all that reorganizing, and I’ll get you your photos. I’ll even find green ways to recycle/repurpose/dispose of as much of that stuff as I can.
But you may have to come to Minnesota and teach my classes for a week or two to make that dream a reality.
February 22nd, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
I’m not sure calling this a ‘meme’ is the best thing to do. It’s too overwhelming and time-consuming for people to want to pass it on in a ‘viral’ way.
However it is a good ‘project’ and I am already thinking about the stuff I hadn’t even thought of as junk – like cassette tapes and old computer disks, which I consider an archive. Also, I’m sure you can get rid of a lot of this stuff through Freecycle.
Also, one reason for keeping information storage devices like discs and computers is a privacy concern – you might be too lazy to wipe the memory properly, but worried about getting rid of it in case the contents came back to embarrass you. eg I had heaps of fun looking at the text messages that had been sent and received on the ‘courtesy phone’ I was given while mine was being repaired.
February 22nd, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
This looks like a great meme. I’ve splashed it around my (small) internet sphere to see what can be dredged up by others.
Not sure what html these comments can handle but here goes…
If they don’t show up you can grab them here, if you’re interested.
What struck me was the still existing use value of the objects. Surely if they were Very Useful two years ago they are still Very Useful today (an old car is still useful, an old wheelbarrow is useful etc etc), but these electronic things have lost some critical value that eludes me (beyond the obvious monetary loss).
To get rid of this stuff try Freecycle. If anyone wants what you’ve got they’ll happily come and get it.
Oh, and hi! I’m Kristian. I’ll be doing Masters in Gender at USyd this year, and also doing admin work for SOPHI.
February 22nd, 2009 @ 8:49 pm
The frightening thing about having a teenager as well as Paul and I working from home means our superseded products get passed along to him and thus rarely leave the house. Also, having produced two records from home and paul doing so much artwork here and having heaps of his bands reels and early recordings means an absolute shitload of obsolete technology and by-products. In one room I have two mini disc players–one for my second album and one as a walkman– a cd walkman, external drives, reels, a four track, sampler, outdated recording dongles, and the list goes on. Plus, Paul’s hoarding gene adds a whole other dimension. And that’s without the household stuff…
February 23rd, 2009 @ 6:13 pm
Thanks to all so far. Looking forward to meeting you Kristian! And Kiley – as usual the answer to every problem is: breed!! x
September 29th, 2009 @ 6:24 am
I have boxes and boxes of cables, usb power firewire DVI VGA coax phone- people need this stuff somewhere out there, but it wont bring what it costs to ship on ebay- has anyone come across a good solution?
January 10th, 2010 @ 8:24 pm
What to do with it…I put some small techno things in a ziplock bag and pinned it to a ‘free stuff’ student union noticeboard at the university where I work, with a notice explaining what it was and how it could be used.