Recycling

In the next five years, we will be swimming in technological waste...Here are some statistics courtesy of Grist, an online environmental magazine...

In five years, there will be...
--> 500 million obsolete personal computers
--> 750 million used cell phones
--> 1.5 billion empty inkjet cartridges
--> 10+ billion old disks and CDs
--> And lots of things we can't even begin to count

There's a coolio company called Greendisk that recycles materials such as disks, CDs, videotapes, and other electronic media. Unfortunately, you have to ship your items to the company and pay for this service - it's $0.15/lb. But then they'll send you a Certificate of Destruction proclaiming that they have indeed recycled your materials and destroyed any data that was contained. The fact that we are doing our part to preserve the earth should motivate us to use this service even if we have to pay a little...

The Houston Zoo accepts all used cell phones, so if you have a cell phone that you want to throw away, donate it to the Zoo! :) For each cell phone donated, the Houston Zoo will receive funds from The Wireless Foundation. 100% of the funds raised will be donated to Bat Conservation International, a non-profit organization devoted to conservation, education, and research initiatives. Phones collected will be sold, recycled, or refurbished. You can drop your phone in a phone recycling bin at the Zoo gift shop or you can mail it to the Zoo at: Houston Zoo Inc.
Cell Phone Recycle
1513 North MacGregor
Houston, TX 77030

Also, place all your empty inkjet cartridges in their cardboard box and put them in the recycling bins on campus. I heard from EiC (I hope all this is still true) that the University makes the majority of recycling money from these cartridges. They also said that it's okay to put the cartridges in the paper-only recycling bins, because the bins are sorted anyways.

This concludes my post on recycling...yay for conservation!