Comments on: The e-waste meme

By: Pip

Pip — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:24:40 +0000

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.

By: Alan Paulk

Alan Paulk — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:24:31 +0000

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?

By: melgregg

melgregg — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:13:09 +0000

Thanks to all so far. Looking forward to meeting you Kristian! And Kiley – as usual the answer to every problem is: breed!! x

By: kiley

kiley — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:49:41 +0000

The frightening thing about having a teenager as well as Paul and I working from home means our superseded products get passed along to him and thus rarely leave the house.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disc players–one for my second album and one as a walkman– a cd walkman, external drives, reels, a four track, sampler, outdated recording dongles, and the list goes on.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…

By: Kristian

Kristian — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:41:30 +0000

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.

By: Mel

Mel — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:50:45 +0000

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.

By: Gil

Gil — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:58:03 +0000

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.

By: barry

barry — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:27:32 +0000

i might need a shovel. possibly a hazmat team.

By: melgregg

melgregg — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:09:48 +0000

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

By: Gil

Gil — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:43:52 +0000

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.