WIN '05 - Recycle and Reuse Our E-Waste
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Staples Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition competition.
My project aims to reduce the amount of e-waste entering the environment by drafting legislation and developing a sustainable system to reuse and recycle it.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Field of Work
environment
If Field of Work is “other” please define in 1-2 words below
Year project started (or projected start date) (yyyy)
2004
YouTube Upload
Project URL (or link to any media coverage)
What is the primary problem your venture is trying to address and how are you addressing it (or planning to address it)?
As electronics become more and more integrated into our society, it is only natural that we manufacture more. However, making more means we need to throw more away. Worldwide, people dispose of 50 million tons of electronic waste, or e-waste, every year. Most people think that it’s perfectly acceptable to throw electronics into the trash, but they are severely mistaken. Nearly all electronics contain extremely toxic heavy metals and other chemicals, such as lead and mercury. A typical CRT monitor contains between 4 and 8 pounds of lead!
My venture has three main ways of addressing this issue. The first is to reuse old computers. My teammates and I refurbish usable but unwanted computers and distribute them back into the community. The second method is to create an easy and efficient way for people to recycle their electronics. My venture contacted local electronics recyclers and worked with them to organize a recycling drive as well as established a permanent receptacle for e-waste that can be easily accessed by residents. Finally, we have pushed for legislation banning the dumping of e-waste, eventually getting a town ordinance passed and then a bill ratified on the state level.
Name Your Project
WIN '05 - Recycle and Reuse Our E-Waste
Describe Your Idea
My project aims to reduce the amount of e-waste entering the environment by drafting legislation and developing a sustainable system to reuse and recycle it.
Innovation
Project Description
My project aims to reduce the amount of e-waste entering the environment by drafting legislation and developing a sustainable system to reuse and recycle it.
Unique and different
My idea is unique and different because it impacts the community and not just the environment. Through my venture, computers are not only reused but they are also given to students who need computers at home. We also have sent computer centers locally and internationally to increase computer literacy.
Another aspect in which my venture is unique is that it is sustainable and easily reproduced. With minimal training, people can learn to refurbish computers in their own towns. Electronics recyclers are willing to provide receptacles since they make a profit by breaking down and selling the raw materials in the electronic waste. It’s a win-win situation.
The second phase of my project, “A Green Bridge Across the Digital Divide” also creates an innovative method to bring information technology to developing countries with minimal environmental impact. Convenient access to the Internet will also help people there share information and raise awareness to combat poverty and injustice.
Project plan
In the next six months, we plan to finish a computer center for The Compass School, a charter school in our state. We also plan to work with local companies as well as larger corporations to ‘adopt’ schools in other countries, such as Mexico, Cameroon and Kenya. We will also continue to raise awareness through presentations to students as well as publicity generated through articles and other organizations, such as UNEP (United Nations Environment Program).
Partnerships
One of our most successful partnerships is with the Washington Trust Company. When they heard about our project from an article in the newspaper, they were just going through a major computer upgrade. As a result, they needed to dispose of over 300 computers. Now, instead of throwing them away, we have worked with the company to refurbish the computers and distribute them throughout the community, as well as used them to create computer centers in other countries.
Another very successful partnership has been with CRT Recycling. CRT is an electronics recycler based in Massachusetts that has to date helped us to recycle 200 thousand pounds of e-waste through the recycling receptacle that they have placed at our town’s transfer station. They have also made a profit out of selling the raw materials, including precious metals, inside the electronics, which are sold to manufacturers to use instead of mining for new material.
In addition, we met international friends through awards and competitions. The Mexican WIN team and the Cameroon WIN team were great partners in helping us establishing local connections and building the computer centers in their countries.
Impact
Impact
My venture has directly impacted over 300 students and seven communities through computer donations; including Sri Lanka, Mexico, Cameroon, Kenya and two Rhode Island schools; recycled over 200 thousand pounds of e-waste, passed a local and a state law banning the dumping of electronics, and raised awareness of the problem to over a million people through public service announcements, a campaign on bags of Doritos chips, videos featured on environmental websites, and over 30 articles in newspapers, books and magazines.
Effectiveness
We have delivered over 300 computers to students in our community, created five international computer centers and established a recycling receptacle servicing the entire community.
How do you engage and impact the community?
To engage and impact the community, we make presentations to the legislature, schools and the general public. We have travelled to England, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, Rhode Island and Washington D.C. to raise awareness of the e-waste problem. Through our media coverage, we have spread the word to potentially over a million people. We also refurbish computers and distribute them to students who need them. In addition, we collect over 3,000 pounds of obsolete and unwanted electronics for recycling at the receptacle we established at the transfer station each month. The community is engaged by responding to our efforts and putting their electronics in the receptacle. Community members have also aided us through petitioning for legislation.
How do you measure this impact?
This impact is measured through the number of computers (375) we have refurbished, the amount of e-waste (200,000 pounds) we have recycled and people we have educated about our project. We measure the amount of people we have reached through our media response, awards, presentations, and other exposure to the public. Also, the law that we helped to pass will permanently impact the environment by prohibiting e-waste dumping in RI.
Obstacles
Some countries such as Nigeria and Brazil have strict importing regulations and importing taxes which makes it difficult to reach out to communities in those countries. Another obstacle is finding groups in other countries to emulate our efforts. This is because it is difficult to effectively coordinate our efforts with other groups in other areas without necessary infrastructures. For example, we often need to help install satellite dishes in some areas in order to get internet access for the computer centers we donated.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Financing source
(or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)
Our first source of major funding was a fifty server computer donation from Alexa.com, now part of Amazon.com. We refurbished most of the computers they sent us, and sold the extra hard drives for funding to buy software and other parts.
We have also received funding through grants and awards, as well as some small donations from individuals and companies in our local community. We have received grants from the Rhode Island Foundation, the Wal-Mart Foundation and the Washington Trust Foundation. We have done some fundraising in schools and supermarkets as well. After our project became more well known, some people have donated to us through United Way since we are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We have also won awards such as the Prudential Spirit of the Community Award, the Volvo Adventure Competition, the Christopher Columbus Award and SeaWorld/Busch Gardens Environmental Excellence Award, which generated a substantial amount of funds to purchase hardware, raise awareness, and send computer centers abroad.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow and sustain your project?
We hope to expand our project by starting new teams in other states and countries to spread the word and broaden our impact. We plan to work with them on passing new e-waste laws if they don’t have one in their own states. In addition, we are trying to access large businesses to ask them to adopt schools worldwide and have their IT departments help to refurbish their own discarded computers then donate them to the schools they adopted. So far we have several companies signed up to participate, including several local banks and Toyota dealership. We are looking for more companies and schools to mimic our project.
We have also established a network of youth activists throughout the world in countries including Mexico, Cameroon and Kenya. They have helped by collecting local information for us to send computer centers, and by spreading the word about our project and the e-waste situation.
Finance details
The name of our 501c(3) non-profit organization is Westerly Innovations Network (WIN) located at Westerly, Rhode Island. After writing grant proposals, e-mailing corporate philanthropic departments, and visiting local shops and businesses, we received funding from various sources. These include the Prudential Foundation, the SeaWorld/Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, the Earth Island Foundation, and donations from individuals and businesses totaling about $85,000.00.
We received donations of the use of two 18-wheeler trucks for our recycling drive from Metech International, and the donation of a permanent receptacle to collect e-waste at our transfer station from CRT Recycling. Local community members donated over 150 computers to our group to refurbish, and the local Washington Trust bank donated over 300.
I am the leading member who organizes most of our efforts. Nanci worked to establish communication between our team and both local and international students. Kelsey arranged our fundraising work, and Jeff worked on researching the e-waste bill. Finally, Bobby worked with the school department to coordinate computer distribution and presentations.
Creative funding
We believe that winning awards and competitions will not only help raise awareness, but also give our project credibility to ask for funding. We have collected most of our funding from winning awards. We have raised over $70,000 in this manner, including ten thousand dollars from the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and another ten thousand from the SeaWorld/Busch Gardens/Fuji film Environmental Excellence Awards.
We also sell some recycled parts such as CD ROM, hard drives and computer memories on eBay to get funding.
Other non finance needs
To sustain our project, we need more people to become conscientious of the e-waste problem and more schools and companies to adopt schools internationally. We need larger corporations to donate and refurbish their own unwanted computers to sponsor computer centers or use their outreach to collect computers to donate to local schools and communities.
The Story
Motivation
I began working on community service projects from when I was nine years old. At that time, my father suggested it as a constructive extracurricular project. With his help, I gathered a team of like-minded students from my town to work on these projects. The first year we worked on Project M.O.W.E.R. - Meals on Wheels Efficiency Restoration, where we helped out local Meals on Wheels program to find more volunteers. The next year we initiated Project S.C.A.T. - South County Animal Treatment, in which we raised awareness about rabies prevention and the need to spay and neuter pets.
By this point it was the fall of 2004. Our work on S.C.A.T. had ended and we were looking for a new project. One day I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal about the dangers of throwing away electronics. I, who work with electronics all the time, had no idea that this was a problem, let alone one with such a negative impact on the environment. However, that got me thinking of ideas in how to help the problem. I realized that this was a problem that I could work to help fix in my own community and others by simply creating a system to dispose of the electronics efficiently that would stop the e-waste from going into the landfill. I suggested my idea to my team to work on and we took a vote. We have been working on this project ever since.
Awards
My team received 3rd place, VolvoAdventure awards in Sweden (2005); Gold place of Christopher Columbus Awards in FL(2005), 1st Place (KY, 2005)and Beyonder Award(MI,2008) at Future Problem Solving International Conference; Best project at Sea World / Busch Garden / Fuji Film Environmental Excellence Awards in CA (2007)...
I was one of the 5 middle school National Honorees of the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards in Washington D. C. (2006), I also won the Brower Youth Awards in CA (2007) and the Eco Hero Awards in CA (2008)
Broader context
As part of the broader youth and social change movement, my project hopes to inspire individuals or teams to begin projects of our own. When we started our project, we tried to find simple and practical ways in which we could make an impact on our town. We hope that when learning about our project, other students will decide to take action by working on projects that pinpoint an area to make a difference.
We have tried to do this through the presentations we have made to students around the world. We have presented our project at our local elementary and middle schools, two schools in Connecticut, Yaocalli school in Mexico City, Durango High School in Colorado as a keynote Earth Week speaker, YMCA at Cambridge, UK and through a LiveWire Media "Character Chronicles" educational DVD and at the 2008 Tunza International Children's Conference for the environment in Stavanger, Norway. All the presentations were well received and inspired many of the young audiences.
Ongoing
This venture was created with the idea of being self-sustainable. Certain aspects have already been made permanent. The e-waste recycling receptacle will continue to be available at our transfer station, and the laws we have helped to pass will always be in place. This will ensure a permanent impact from my venture. Also, the computer centers created through my project will still be in place. When we established them, we made sure that there was a computer technician on-site who could maintain and repair the computers if necessary. These centers will continue to affect the lives of the people in those communities.
I will keep finding corp. sponsors to refurbish then donate their unwanted computers to schools they adopted and I will continue to work actively on the project until I go to college. Even then, I will be able to oversee the efforts of my town to improve the e-waste situation. I can continue to raise awareness anywhere I go by making presentations and word-of-mouth. I can also teach people to refurbish computers and how to start similar programs in other areas.
What is your age?
15
How did you hear about this competition?
Mr. James Bach of Ashoka's Youth Venture contacted me through e-mail and encouraged me to apply for this competition.
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