Setting up E For Good (Apr12)
Along with Melinda Watson from the Raw Foundation, I’ve set up E For Good. We’re the first consumer-facing organisation targeting e-waste from an environmental life-cycle perspective. Our aims are to reduce the amount of e-waste, promote repair and reuse and recycle the rest, as efficiently as possible. We’re working with Environcom, an e-waste company, who […]
Clear Out electricals week in Grantham and Stamford (Mar12)
The aim of Clear Out Electricals Week, which took place in Grantham and Stamford from 12th – 18th March, 2012 was to try out E for Good’s ideas for collecting e-waste and raising awareness about it’s impacts. We chose to work in two Lincolnshire towns because of their proximity to Environcom, the e-waste company we […]
Recycling is not enough – we need more reuse of e-waste (Feb12)
E For Good is campaigning to Clear Out and Clean up electrical and electronic waste – website will be launched by March 2012.. Refurbished washing machines waiting to be reused – at Environcom site Melinda Watson and Julia Hailes – co-founders of E For Good First I should explain that e-waste is waste electrical and […]
EU WEEE Regulation is Bonkers (Jan12)
For anyone that doesn’t know, ‘WEEE’ stands for ‘Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment’ – it covers pretty well all products with a battery or a plug. Although it doesn’t actually cover batteries – there’s separate legislation for them, which isn’t very good either. I can’t claim to fully understand how the system works but here’s […]
Legendary Environmental Activist! (Jan12)
As part of their ‘Remarkable Men and Women’ series, I was invited to speak to Laurel Springs online school. In the introduction I could see which parts of the world the children came from – mostly America but several in the Far East too. I was the only participant from the UK. My brief was […]
Mad copper fiasco in IT (Nov11)
Copper now sells for somewhere between £4000 a tonne and £5000 a tonne depending on where you look. That’s why it’s being stolen from telephone exchanges, from electricity stations and from railways – train disruption from copper theft is becoming nearly as common as suicides. In IT equipment copper is common – particularly in wires. […]
Inspiring E-Waste Company Leads on Re-use (Sept11)
Sean Feeney from EnvironCom standing on fridge foam bits Washing machines being tested I’m rather surprised to discover that there are quite a few people who don’t know what E-Waste is. I mentioned our E-Waste Campaign, when I was speaking to a large audience last week – and someone asked me to clarify. That […]
We need more computer re-use (Aug11)
We travelled up to Arnos Grove – an area of London I’d never been to before. My companion was Melinda Watson, who has set up the E-Waste Campaign with me. We’d arranged to look round the office and depot of Computer Aid. The factory floor was piled high with computer parts – hard drives, circuit […]
Eco-technologies at Home – Electric Green (Jun11)
This is a draft of article written for the FT – an edited edition was published in June 2011 – Eco Technologies at home – Electric Green. DRAFT ARTICLE Finding eco-technologies that have really good eco-credentials is harder than you might think. For example, I’m a bit cynical about bamboo mice for your computer and […]
Green Mobile Company Lives and Dies – C Mobile (Jun11)
C Mobile promised a greener approach to using your mobile phone. Their idea was to give a proportion of their profits to community renewable energy projects, to minimise waste, offer re-conditioned hand-sets and recycle phones wherever possible. Unfortunately they both launched and folded in 2010 and 2011 – they weren’t able to keep up with the big […]