some clarifications.
the fed epa is not the problem. dtsc is part of a state agency the cal-epa.
to my knowledge we have no issues on either side with fed epa. In fact they gave me an award last year.
While I am a great fan of free speech and such you should at least target correctly.
Please quit telling the wrong people to @#$% themselves. For that matter the phrase lacks creativity and at this point even I think its overboard.
I very much appreciate the sentiment but even I have toned my stuff down a bit. I even.. edited. (you really have no idea how difficult that was.)
I have also been told yet again not to play with the trolls. but we seem to have one out there in the wild. I'm getting bored with his points so I shall address them here.
The comparative volume of what the dtsc is upset about is approx 5% of the total mass in the building at any given time and represents a much smaller volume over time as we move an awful lot of stuff we cannot (yet) recover. For example I regret to inform you all that I have no good use for your grandmothers old console tv (mount a mythtv box in it?) and we see an awful lot of them. These leave almost immediately to a another company as do the monitors we do not use. (things we don't place or think we might use leave in less than a week and are (last I checked)in dtsc compliance.) This also applies to the electronics as I have no interest in holding on to a dead vcr for any length of time.
Nor does the complaint in any way point to any containment or release issues. (sealed concrete floor, locked building an over abundance of fire extinguishers in a fully sprinklered building) we have passed all safety and fire inspections. While flooding has occurred in the area in the past it has never resulted in a release and frankly it would now have to be biblical in proportion to be an issue as the first (last and only) one was quite educational.
Again the dtsc has an issue about the stuff we think might be recoverable/valuable/historic nothing else. If they impose a fine it could quite possibly kill us. The threat to impose a fine is in the text and is not a point of argument. Running out of funds would close us down. (this threat has been reduced, Thank you for the support, We are working on the donation receipts)
Nor does this have anything to do with corporate take back campaigns (if you don't like them you have no idea of the cold loathing I have for them as I consider them to be planned obsolescence)
as for reading things that are not in the text. We have no environmental complaints no complaints from our neighbors (other than maybe my behaviour toward neighbors with property line issues) no safety issues and the dtsc is not complaining about anything except the stuff we want to keep and the overstressed, brain damaged, periodic jackass who runs the place. (and admittedly the second part was due to a bipolar moment on the jackasses part. While the opinions still stand the expression was of dubious value.)
to my knowledge we have no issues on either side with fed epa. In fact they gave me an award last year.
While I am a great fan of free speech and such you should at least target correctly.
Please quit telling the wrong people to @#$% themselves. For that matter the phrase lacks creativity and at this point even I think its overboard.
I very much appreciate the sentiment but even I have toned my stuff down a bit. I even.. edited. (you really have no idea how difficult that was.)
I have also been told yet again not to play with the trolls. but we seem to have one out there in the wild. I'm getting bored with his points so I shall address them here.
The comparative volume of what the dtsc is upset about is approx 5% of the total mass in the building at any given time and represents a much smaller volume over time as we move an awful lot of stuff we cannot (yet) recover. For example I regret to inform you all that I have no good use for your grandmothers old console tv (mount a mythtv box in it?) and we see an awful lot of them. These leave almost immediately to a another company as do the monitors we do not use. (things we don't place or think we might use leave in less than a week and are (last I checked)in dtsc compliance.) This also applies to the electronics as I have no interest in holding on to a dead vcr for any length of time.
Nor does the complaint in any way point to any containment or release issues. (sealed concrete floor, locked building an over abundance of fire extinguishers in a fully sprinklered building) we have passed all safety and fire inspections. While flooding has occurred in the area in the past it has never resulted in a release and frankly it would now have to be biblical in proportion to be an issue as the first (last and only) one was quite educational.
Again the dtsc has an issue about the stuff we think might be recoverable/valuable/historic nothing else. If they impose a fine it could quite possibly kill us. The threat to impose a fine is in the text and is not a point of argument. Running out of funds would close us down. (this threat has been reduced, Thank you for the support, We are working on the donation receipts)
Nor does this have anything to do with corporate take back campaigns (if you don't like them you have no idea of the cold loathing I have for them as I consider them to be planned obsolescence)
as for reading things that are not in the text. We have no environmental complaints no complaints from our neighbors (other than maybe my behaviour toward neighbors with property line issues) no safety issues and the dtsc is not complaining about anything except the stuff we want to keep and the overstressed, brain damaged, periodic jackass who runs the place. (and admittedly the second part was due to a bipolar moment on the jackasses part. While the opinions still stand the expression was of dubious value.)
posted by Unknown at 3:57 PM
9 Comments:
You remind me a little bit of "Teddy Bloat" in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
-t
Don't reuse your cooking oil for biodiesel, don't reuse your plastic bags at the shopping mart, don't reuse your gray water for toilet water, don't even think of reusing your tea leaves, and for gods sake, throw all your old computers away, now!
With an industry that has pushed disposability of its toxic products as far and far away as possible, why stop anyone's efforts to curb some of that waste stream...
Would we want to apply that same standard to all the homeowners out there, that may one day be empowered to reuse their old computer case, or DVD drive, or monitor. Should we strip them of their ability to assign value to any of their electronic items after some arbitrary grace period has passed?
Well, I guess you could say that those people need to be protected from their own toxic waste. I guess some people may still do not know (or what to know) about the arsenic lurking in their desktop in the attic, and their 2-year-old laptop in the closest. But they don't really have to worry about it, because eventually they will just chuck it in a dumpster, or maybe, these day, properly dispose of it the ACCRC and then it becomes someone else's problem.
But, if there is someone who does know about the toxicity of these materials, someone who is incapable of closing the closet door or the attic hatch to this waste, that someone includes everyone who works at the ACCRC. I absolutely trust the ACCRC members to discern what is of value amongst the tons of toxic waste they process daily. If there is a possibility that some of that toxic waste can be sprung back to life, I totally trust the ACCRC to do that, within the time frame they set accordingly. I continue to trust the ACCRC to deal with this the problem that the industry and all the users out there are just discarding.
I don't know who else is better prepared to decide these problems than the professionals to deal with it daily.
James, you have my most humble apology for posting before thinking. However, I will not delete my blog entry for one reason: I want to show to others that I am capable of making mistakes and that I am willing to admit to them.
--Thomas Holbrook II
I just wanted to inform you that I've donated $10 to help you (I'm a college student, so I couldn't spare too much) and I'll certainly call or email the appropriate people to speak on your behalf as well.
Computers are the great equalizers of this age. For all the good that OLPC can do, they still cost a substantial amount, especially for those in poorer areas.
E-waste is also a huge issue that contributes towards contamination of the soil and ground water and bleaching of the coral reefs. That someone can help with both of these things at the same time is something to be encouraged and wished for.
In fact I consider it particularly relevant to myself as my first PC was one that my family got from Goodwill for virtually free and today I'm looking forward to a profitable and fulfilling career in Network and Systems Administration.
Please anyone who reads this also donate or call and email the DTSC or better yet..do both. There are far too few visionaries as is who do things like this, it would be an utter shame for us to lose one of the few who is.
Just wanted to pop in and say that I fully believe in what you are doing.
I had to trash pick almost all of my equipment. It helped that I was in a job that wasn't a part of my degree (landscaping) so the early-morning start helped a bit... but all my life I learned about electronics by picking stuff out of the trash. Each time I did I thought about how lucky I was, and felt a pang of guilt that someone else couldn't learn because I "picked" the trash.
Whatever I fixed I used, whatever I used eventually was given away. Whatever I couldn't fix I parted out and recycled. Heck, I even worked in '96 for a company that repossessed computer equipment from a big leasing company. I used to be the one that would yea or nay mainframes to the small little devices or others that were cool and proprietary (and expensive, go figure).
I always felt lucky somehow that I learned to find the gems in what others threw away, and through that I somehow landed in the field I'm in now, working where I want and when I want (which is always).
Thanks, even tho you don't know me, for making me feel a little bit better. By helping people and recycling electronics as a non-profit... I tip my hat at thee.
I am reposting a comment I left at boingboing:
You are in the right, they are in the wrong. Sometimes even with a large matter such as this, conscience informs you that it does in fact come down to something that simple. However, they are both wholly wrong and wholly in power, which means you are morally authorized to wholly deceive them. Draw up a full inventory as best you can, and make up the rest. Move things around; tape off sections of the floor; print and post clear and important-looking signs; spend a day reorganizing in such a fashion that it it obvious you have cleaned the place up--which will have the secondhand benefit of actually cleaning the place up. Take any items which might raise red flags--such as your legitimate memorabilia--and move them offsite or to a $300 shed (from any big-box hardware store) with "Marked for Recycling and Disposal" on it, and a posted timesheet labeling dates and times of recent disposal runs and projected ones. Take half an hour and draw up official waste-disposal schedules and plans, have the board of directors sign it (or at least yourself), using documents from the Internet as guides to making official-sounding language. This foolish inspector does not need to be fought or petitioned; he needs to believe he has made his mark. Allow him to believe it.
For your historical items, you should consider creating a separate non-profit entity that is a museum and not a recycling/reuse center. Your current organization can then donate any items that have historical value to this separate organization. You might even be able to get away with having the museum rent an area within your current building as a sublease (if your current lease agreement allows this).
Hope it all works out for you.
Hang a large banner on your building: "Shut down by California Bureaucrats. To help, visit accrc.org ".
You'll get alot of exposure, at least.
Hey man thought you'd like to know that us diggers pretty much shut down the DTSC's site for a day. 2500 diggs about this and I posted their site and e-mail address so people could start sending messages to the right people, for whatever good it may or may not do. I am so sorry to hear about all this and wish the best of luck to you and yours. I will encourage as many people as possible to donate to your worthy cause, I'm not anywhere near you guys, I live in Detroit, but I was so upset about this I could hardly sleep. I hope your meeting with the higher ups goes well. PLEASE KEEP US POSTED! Take care.
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