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Greg Galitzine
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January 2009

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The Next Steps In Cellphone (and Electronics) Recycling: Redesign, Refocus on Software

January 22, 2009

Cellphone recycling is beginning to take off and that's great news for the environment and ultimately for all of us.

The latest such move is Recycle My Cell, a new Web-based nationwide initiative launched by Canada's wireless industry that lets users find out where and how to properly dispose of their cell phones and other wireless devices - regardless of carrier, brand, or condition. 

The free program in the country that brought us the BlackBerry incorporates numerous existing cell phone recycling initiatives is being organized by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) in conjunction with cell phone service providers, handset manufacturers, and recycling companies.

Recycle My Cell can be adopted by provinces and municipalities as part of their initiatives to manage e-waste. Nova Scotia, on Canada's east coast, is the first province to have done so.



Canadian retailers are already on board with cellphone recycling.

Green Jobs?

January 19, 2009

In an exchange on contact center employment, Group Publisher Rich Tehrani expressed skepticism about the numbers of new American jobs, estimated by some sources at 5+ million that going green will produce.

No one has explained to him why the U.S. will make better green products than the Chinese or Japanese if the U.S. can't make better cars, etc.

Why EVs (etc.) are NG

January 15, 2009

I have long been skeptical about electric or other alternative-fueled vehicles as truly green technologies because they all consume vast amounts of life-giving open space to transport comparatively few people and goods, drives more sprawl, which does likewise, and incurs air-killing construction and upkeep and requires hydrocarbon-based paving materials.

Peter Foster, a columnist in Canada's National Post, along with associated commentators have come up with a few more points to consider, in his column Wednesday subtitled 'Today's alternative vehicles are all profit graveyards or subsidy pits'.

Mr. Foster correctly pointed out one of the fallacies behind assuming that people will buy electric vehicles (EVs) and that is it isn't the average amount of driving per day that matters but the farthest that one usually wants to go.

"Apparently, Americans on average drive their cars less than 35 miles a day, but to suggest that this supports the viability of short-range electric cars is like suggesting that a five-foot tall person should be in no trouble if forced to spend alternate one hour periods in water six feet deep and two feet deep.

Canadian Government Funds Green Transportation (Including Telework) Initiatives

January 9, 2009

The Canadian federal government is taking the axiom of 'think globally, act locally' to heart by financing over a dozen local green transportation programs that range from cycling to shared-ride home, public transit, walking to school, and to telework.

Here is the release and the backgrounder:
 
Federal government delivers green transportation initiatives  
 
    OTTAWA, Jan. 8 /CNW Telbec/ - Canada's Transport Minister, John Baird,announced today that the Government of Canada will invest in 14 projects across the country that support environmentally friendly transportation.
 
    The projects will receive a total of almost $3 million under the ecoMOBILITY program. Fourteen municipalities will receive funding for projects that respond to their individual needs and circumstances.





Cut down on E-Waste--Make Hardware Repairable

January 6, 2009


A well-timed (day after Christmas) article in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper pointed out the obvious--that today's gadgets are meant to be disposable--but also at one part of the solution to curb the consequences i.e. e-waste  that is already in play, which are growing numbers of repair shops.

The paper cited Jesse Hirsh, a Toronto-based technology analyst, who is amazed at what he calls a "boom" in the past couple of years of iPhone/iPod fix-it shops. They allow people to get eight, 10, 12, 18 more months out of products that are really designed to last a year, maybe two at tops."

Even so fixing last year's iPod goes against the grain of consumer technology, which has morphed the masses into a disposable gadget society. 

"There is a tragedy to that," Hirsh told the newspaper. "It makes it more difficult, and sometimes more expensive ...






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