Posts Tagged ‘illegal dumping of e-waste’
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Grenk releases video on electronic waste and the impact it has on the environment
Posted By: Brad Roderick
E-waste is an important issue, not just in the US or North America, but globally. Its an important issue on a number of fronts. Most people are aware that virtually every major city in the US that their landfills have been closed—theyre at maximum capacity now. So where does excess landfill material go? It has to be shipped somewhere. So were creating a problem somewhere else. Thats general landfill space, but when we look at electronic or e-waste space, the problem is a lot greater. In less scrupulous environments, e-waste is typically sold and bought by the pound and goes offshore.
China has significant problems in a couple of different provinces and regions right now because their whole economy is based on e-waste. In Hong Kong, one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, there are days when you cant breathe outside. The air is that thick, it makes you choke, its brown, its black. What happens with this e-waste is that there are certain chemicals; there are certain components that are of value say gold in electronic circuitry that they need to extract out of that. They do that by burning off the rest of the material. So there are toxic fumes there are toxic chemicals that are created when they try and extract the little bit of value out of this e-waste that here is. What happens to the rest of that material? It ends up being burned; it ends up being stockpiled in areas.
The thing about electronic waste: its growing, not just as a problem but its growing in terms of total units. What do we buy anymore that doesnt have some electrical or electronic componentry to it. But the two big ones that sometimes people forget are computer monitors. Those have to be handled in an environmentally appropriate way. They cant just be thrown into the garbage.
The other is the growing area of the home theatre stuff. Bigger and bigger screens and its all shorter life. So there is a growing amount of electronic waste that is being created and we have to find environmentally responsible ways to be able to deconstruct that material, to be able to truly recycle it in ways that are not just preferable but environmentally safe.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Grenk Featured in Sweeps4Bloggers Promotional Giveaway
Posted By: Brad Roderick
I want to thank Valerie Mitchell for featuring grenk on Sweeps4Bloggers for their promotional giveaway.
Giveaway – Grenk Printer Ink Cartridges – 5 Winners – Ends 5/2/10
For all information about the promotional giveaway go to: Sweeps4Bloggers
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Grenk featured in product review on myshoppingconnection; Greener Choices for Electronics
Posted By: Brad Roderick
I would like to thank Erika Pitera and myshoppingconnection.com for giving grenk an excellent review in their article; Greener Choices for Electronics.
Greener Choices for Electronics
We live in a very tech-centric society, and our daily activities inevitably leave behind a carbon footprint.
Luckily, more and more companies are offering us ways to save energy, reduce waste and generally be more eco-friendly when it comes to the gadgets and electronics we use.
Here are just a few companies making strides in the world of green tech.
grenk
Even if you only print a little bit at work or at home, your ink and toner cartridges have a fairly significant carbon footprint. Enter grenk, an eco-friendly company that remanufactures cartridges to conserve natural resources and control waste from manufacturing processes.
grenk’s package design and manufacturing standards were developed by InkCycle, and grenk uses a self-regulation process for remanufacturing and distributing ink and toner cartridges.
Some of their efforts include: a commitment to maximize the reuse of materials from an ink or toner cartridge to minimize landfill waste and reduce end-waste cycles; environmentally friendly package design that uses the highest available content of recycled material with certified chain-of-custody (such as oxygen-degradable film, air pillows and shredded test sheets from the plant to help cushion the delicate cartridge).
Make sure you tell your office manager about grenk!
For all the products in their review click here
Friday, March 19, 2010
Expensive recycling costs lead to illegal dumping of electronic waste in Africa
Posted By: Brad Roderick
Here is an article from the United Kingdom highlighting the illegal trade of electronic waste from around the world.
London’s illegal trade in electronic E-waste
E-waste is our fastest growing form of rubbish. Eager for flat screens and HD pictures, London dumps more than 4,000 TVs daily.
These TVs are packed with lead and toxic metals, and the law requires all electricals to be recycled within the UK.
To avoid paying for proper disposal in the UK, criminals ship containers of electrical waste and illegally dump it in Africa.
But when our reporter Mark Jordan visited a dump site at the ‘Sodom and Gomorra’ slum in Ghana, he discovered tonnes of our E-waste that had been illegally shipped and dumped – some bearing the names of UK banks, health authorities and a police force.
This waste is dismantled for metals by children as young as five – unaware of the serious health hazards involved from heavy metals and carcinogenic agents.
The UK has banned the export of electrical waste, but that green law has turned toxic as criminals smuggle it out for recycling in one of the poorest countries on earth.