I’ve been feeling increasingly frustrated that I am not doing at least my fair share to promote ‘eco-responsibility’ in our every day lives.  Running around the house turning out lights and berating my family members about how we need to start doing the laundry at 3 AM isn’t making me feel like I’m sufficiently contributing to stewardship of our environment.

The most obvious area where we can make a difference away from reducing our energy consumption is to reduce our garbage production. The amount of garbage that human beings produce every day is astounding– I now feel like a criminal when I buy something at a store that is ‘too packaged’.  All I see are wasted resources that go into unnecessary "look and feel" outer layers that are irrelevant to the functionality of the product that I just bought.  I now routinely refuse bags when I go shopping unless they are absolutely necessary, and I’ve begun bringing my own re-usable bag into stores.

Getting back to garbage, let’s talk about how we must change the way that we get rid of old electronics and batteries.  DO NOT throw these obsolete devices (computers, display screens, televisions, VCR players, old DVD players, phones of all kinds) away; DO NOT think that calling your normal garbage disposal company for a special pick-up of electronics means they are being recycled responsibly.

Fortunately, I recently discovered GreenCitizen, which recycles electronics and batteries responsibly.  From the GreenCitizen website:

TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Today the electronics de-manufacturing and recycling industry lacks standards and accountability. At GreenCitizen, recycled items are tracked through the entire de-manufacturing process to provide full accountability for the safe disposal of all toxins. With our accountability system, manufacturers, retailers, environmentalists and government are able to measure the success of their investments and efforts to support electronics recycling.

RESPONSIBLE RECYCLING /SAFE DISPOSAL

At GreenCitizen, 100% of what you give us is truly recycled. Components that can be recycled are, and toxic elements are disposed of safely. By reusing glass, plastic, aluminum and heavy metals (like lead, copper and mercury), recycling averts the energy use and pollution linked with mining and drilling for new materials.

Green Citizen, which was started by James Kao, formerly of Oracle, is doing something important.  Please support them, as I do, by letting them recycle your old electronics.  The price that you pay them to do this is insignificant compared to the good that they are doing– they have drop off centers in Silicon Valley and in San Francisco, and they will pick up at your office.

Related posts:

1. Aspen Ideas Festival: Peter Hirshberg Interviews Jim Steyer About How Children Must Learn Responsible Digital Citizenship on the Web
2. Top Reasons Why Public Company Directors Should be Removed

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.