Arfa Daily spake thus:
Well, it's all relative, isn't it? My point was that lead pollution from discarded electronics is a serious problem. If you live here in West Oakland, then you're going to be more concerned about getting asthma from all the trucks going in and out of the Port of Oakland.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com spake thus:
Don't want to rain on your parade, but no, it's not an excellent resource, at least from my experience. It seems to be full of messages from nice, well-intentioned middle-class folks who are concerned about finding a good home for the rest of that package of paper plates, or whatever. It is available, but be prepared for disappointment. (Plus, I don't care for the way it's implemented as a whole bunch of Google groups, but that's a different complaint.)
It is what it is. I have two TV's, a cordless phone and a couple of other things - all saved from the waste stream.
There are some silly laws that say once something is in the dump, it must stay there. Our town used to have an area where you could put unwanted stuff for others to take, but no more.
Our town periodically has special drop-off days at the recycling facility for discarded TVs & other electronic devices.
Aspasia
I have a killer 3-head 3-motor SONY open-reel tape deck that I'm going to put on Craig's List (along with a ton of free tapes). A real classic. If you're anywhere near Santa Monica CA, maybe you're interested? For money, not love.
Aspasia
Freecycle is great, if your local group isn't fully moderated and operated by Nazis.
The local group is run that way. The moderators kick people off left and right, for breaking their latest unwritten rules. If you get multiple requests for something, no matter who you choose, they object to your choice. Its supposed to go to the first request. Its to go to the person who needs it the most. Its supposed to go to someone who checks the list once a month, then complains she has never received anything from the group, even though it was picked up two weeks before she replied to the offer. You can't give it to someone who gives lots of things away, because they can't possibly need it, and on and on.
I gave away a lot of stuff, and got some computer scrap, but when I asked if anyone had any empty ink cartridges so I could refill the to test a couple printers, I was banned for life. Then I got several nasty e-mails from the two moderators who accused me of everything but being white. They made threats, and accused me of having a flea market business and selling over 100 working computers that I supposedly received through the group. I am 100% disabled, and get to the flea market about twice a year. Just be careful.
There is no Craig's list for my area, but I am trying to get enough people to request it.
The same with some thrift stores. I make regular pickups from three local stores, every other week.
You can thank the lawyers for that. Someone drags something home, gets hurt, then sues the owner of the dump.
Tried complaining to the main group: snipped-for-privacy@freecycle.org ??
Homer J Simpson spake thus:
Did you get all that from Freecycle?
Neither have I, but I am 59 and I've reached my limit. I have twelve
12" tv's, half color and have black and white, that I have tried or will try to fix, and about twelve 19" tvs, all color, that I haven't tried to fix yet but will give them maybe an hour each. But now I have 3 more than I can use 19 inch that work, all from the trash. In the last couple years, most that I have found still work.And last week I found a 24 or 25 inch model. So far it only gets 2, 4 (DC), 11, 13, and 24, but that's using the autofinder. I have to set a remote to try other stations we have, and if it gets them all, or even channel 3, I'll use all my strength and get it down to the basement. It must be fairly old, or maybe it is because of the picture tube, because it is heavier than other recent 19inch tv's, and bulky, and I have ready dropped the thing once, breaking the plastic things the back is screwed to. But I can glue that together well enough.
But I'm not taking it downstairs until I know it works, so it has been on the front sidewalk covered by a blue mesh tarp for the last 8 days.
Anyhow, what is the point of fixing tv's that I don't need and will be almost obsolete in 2? years. (Almost because I'm not buying 7 new tv's and there won't be any on the sidewalk for a few years, so I'm going to buy one adapter and use one central place for tuning all the tv's.
And I can't strip them because I'm out of room for storing such parts. So 24 tv's or more are going to go out pretty much in one piece during the next 4 months. Plus I have a small xerox machine that according to the paperwork I found with it, the previous owner didn't want to pay to have it fixed, and I don't think I can. And a big but light laser printer that needs a new heater, that I got for free or under 5 dollars, and it wasn't worth fixing.
But they won't. This is why I'm pretty sure the trash man will still take tv's, because for a lot of people, it will be an incredible chore to go to this one place in central baltimore county, 20 or 30 miles from where some people live.
I do that too. So far the fastest I've gotten was 200 MHz, but it was a Dell also and I wanted one for a particular reason.
I just want to get a 1" x 1 1/2" x 1/4" plastic piece that says Kenmore on it, from a refrigerator at the waste disposal place, but I haven't found one yet. I knocked the piece off and it should be on the floor in my kitchen somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. If I order the part, it will probably be 325 dollars.
Remove NOPSAM to email me..
I agree with you.
I once told the story of drivign down 2nd Avenue in NYC, somewhere in the 20's and seeing a big (though only 5 or 6 foot high dumpster full of books.
There were about 6 guys inside gathering books, plus I joined them of course. All hardback, on every subject. There were 3 kinds of people, those who would get in for a while, those who would just walk by, and those who would stand outside once in a while pointing to a book and asking someone to get it for them. How they could see the title on a hardback book with no dust cover, I don't know.
I got about 20 or 25 books the first day, and I went back 2 out of the next 4 days. The level of books kept getting lower. There must have been 20,000 to start, and maybe 10,000 when I stopped going. But they were probably adding more books every day also. (I had to come from Brooklyn.) The weather was beautiful every day. New Yorkers are used to finding good stuff in the trash, because most aparatments are small and even in the 70's people couldnt even keep a broken 12 inch tv waiting for a time to fix it. No room.
I got about 35 books in total.
Remove NOPSAM to email me..
Yes. I only need the TV's to last a year. A lot of people are junking them for plasma etc.
Somehow, the thought of incinerating lead does not make me comfortable. Not to mention the toxic gases from the electronic bits.
Printed circuit boards have been burnt to recover the metals in EPA licensed ovens for decades. The metal vapor condenses in the stack, then the metals are separated chemically. A Japanese company has a patent for a process that shreds scrap fiberglass PC boards, then dissolves the metals in acid. The scrap fiberglass is washed, and mixed with raw fiberglass to make things like sinks and bathtubs.
There isn't much in the universe that couldn't be recycled if you could figure out a convenient way to separate it from other bits.
I suspect that this is a regulation, not a law. And it's probably because the people running the dump are absolutely convinced that some s*****ad is going to haul a gas-powered appliance out of the dump, cut their finger, have the appliance blow up, (explaining why it was in the dump in the first place) and then sue them.
What you need to do is set up a non-profit junkyard.
In my neighborhood, we have "heavy trash" pickup once a month. I call it "foraging night." In addition to a shop-vac, a recliner, and other goodies, my prize is a WW2 jerry can. It's a military five-gallon gas can and is in perfect shape. What makes this one so neat is the stencil on the bottom:
09-44 IIIArmyYou can Google for the exploits of the US 3rd Army in September 1944. This very gas can may have helped liberate the 101st Airborne at Bastonge in December 1944. Who knows?
Not very likely. Most of the low cost types of equipment was left behind because it cost more to bring it back, than the cost to replace it. It was probably being readied to be shipped overseas and never made it. Millions of dollars worth of military gear was sold for pennies on the dollar at the end of WW II, because they no longer needed it, and the cost to build warehouses for long term storage would have cost more than it was worth.
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