Computers, Society, and Nature

Here are some of my favourite recycling strategies.

Recycling Snow (or grit)
Edmonton plows the snow from its streets and places it in into a landfill that’s fitted with a settling pond at the base. As the snow melts, the gravel and sand settle to the bottom. The grit is recovered by the city and then reused the next year.

Rain Trap System
The Rain Trap System uses over 1 million tires during the construction of a typical golf course. The tires are halved, placed edge to edge, and then buried. They act as a a subsurface irrigation system to hold and recycle water. According to the site, the soil is capable of holding “266 percent more water for turf grass roots than natural soil.”

The Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary
The City of Arcata, California, US created a relatively low-tech alternative to traditional sewage treatment: an artificial wetlands waste treatment plant.

Alberta’s Green Tax
This year Alberta, Canada launched a program to impose a surcharge on the purchase of computers, computer peripherals, and televisions. The “advanced disposal surcharge”defrays the cost of disposal of electronic and electrical devices. The surcharge ranges from $5 for laptops to $45 for large-screen televisions.

Cash for Old Cell Phones
Several companies are offering cash for your old cell phones. Besides getting cash, or in some cases reward points, you also can save the environment.

What are your favourites recycling sites?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 23rd, 2005 at 10:32 pm and is filed under computer waste, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.