Mother's going GREEN Day 31 - Computers and Such

I have been having some computer problems for the last several weeks. Finally, today a technician was out to have a look at the problems..... After a few hours we got it fixed but he did mention to me that it was probably time I got a new computer. "What a new one, this is only 5 years old" was my response. "Yes, but a computers life is only about 5 years" he said.

That got me thinking - if everyone has a computer which pretty much everyone does have that's an awful lot of computers being replaced every 5 years give or take a few years, and an awful amount of computers being made each year. I made a decision to hang onto this computer for much longer. Okay so it gives me problems, sometimes it can be slow, but it does the job I need it to do. When the time comes I will get rid of it the environmentally friendly way. My friends at Our Green Year speak to this (http://ourgreenyear.blogspot.com/search?q=e-waste). However, I also found a website that suggests much of the E-Waste is then just simply sent off to China, Nigeria, India and Pakistan (usually illegally) where it remains in toxic piles waiting to be recycled, poisoning the residents. http://www.greenlivingonline.com/HomeGarden/stop-e-waste-by-recycling/

So when it comes time to reinvest in another computer (I will try and make this one last another 5 years - by fixing it) I will ensure that the company I buy it from will also offer a good recycling program for it, when it's time comes. Here is another interesting site on all the hazardous chemicals in ones computer: http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/story.html?id=e8def77a-3a8f-420b-ad29-a9e08d03fca0.

Moral of this story: Don't throw out your computer or any electronics for that matter and be sure to recycle it ethically. With an E-Waste company that has ethical practises.

A side note on plastics: One of the comments I received recently was that their organic produce was packaged in an 'unsafe' plastic. This prompted me to check mine. What I had, all seemed to be in the 'safe' plastic. But what I did note though was my milk and juice are packaged in 'unsafe' plastic; whereas my old cleaning detergents (I had to blow of the dust and search the back of the kitchen cupboard for them) are mostly packaged in the 'safe' plastic. How ironic - I guess the cleaning companies just don't want any more poisons to leach into their already toxic product.