Until two weeks ago I thought our local council gave used computers to organizations for reuse and recycling. I based this belief on the Barnet website, http://www.barnet.gov.uk/, which states that home office and computer equipment, and I quote, “is collected by organizations for reuse and recycling” .
However, this was not my experience when I took one of the family’s many discarded PCs out for recycling, or so I thought. If I had imagined that I was going to help a poor village in Africa or some other place too hot to mention, I would be wrong.
Because as I made my way to the corner where a lot of our technological waste ends up, I could clearly hear, in the distance, the unmistakable sound of a man.
“Junk it mate.”
I turned with all the dignity a man carrying a desktop computer can have and pointed out that I thought it was council policy to recycle used computers.
“Nah, dude. People leave them with the electronics, but we just throw them away anyway.”
I complied and made a mental note to check this ‘fact’ with the local authority, who seem to be trying really hard to reduce waste. And so I did, and I’m waiting for a response to tonight’s email. As I tossed this piece of ‘junk’ into the giant bin, I reflected on the fact that, just a few short years ago, an incredibly complex and clever piece of equipment like this would have been someone’s most prized possession, probably even owned by a company. private and definitely costs thousands. But not even for that money I would have been able to buy one, since the best on the market wasn’t even that fast, just a few years ago.
Today such an item is simply not good enough, not even worth taking apart for someone else to deal with.
The way people here behave, you’d think there are too many computers in the world, but according to Computer Aid International, a charity that distributes PCs in the developing world ([http://www.computuraid.org/] )
“The digital divide that currently exists between developed and developing countries is huge. The latest research from the World Bank shows that there are 5 or fewer computers per 1,000 people in the vast majority of Sub-Saharan African countries. This figure also It is applicable to the South Asian subcontinent”.
Here in the UK, more than half of all households have at least one PC, more than in ours.
Is there a link between our attitude towards the technology used and our attitude towards everything around us? I think so, but that is another topic for another day.
By the way, the City seems to be doing something with the monitors. I saw them loaded onto a pallet at a considerable rate. It is quite difficult for them to keep up with the number arriving.
