Tools

You want to reduce your energy consumption, but what's the most effective way of doing it ? Here's some tools for working out what to do:

Also, do you know how much space you are taking up on the planet ? Use the Ministry for the Environment's ecological footprint calculator to find out.

How to Reuse / Recycle your computer in New Zealand

Urban Sustainability

We'll assume that you have decided at this point that you have a computer that you really do need to get rid of, and that you can't simply have it repaired in order to continue using it (since that is definitely the most sustainable option).

If you're thinking that it's cheaper just to throw it away and buy a new one, here's a few reasons why you'd be wrong:

  • Throwing something away takes a lot of energy, primarily in transporting it to the landfill which may be some distance from you.
  • Computers are chock full of nasty chemicals and toxic metals that leach from the landfill into the environment. Love Canal in the US was an extreme example of the consequences of burying poison in the ground for later generations to dig up, but it serves to illustrate the point.
  • Valuable resources like heavy metals are no good to anyone in a landfill. We will all ultimately pay higher prices for the goods we buy because the materials used to make those goods will be in increasingly short supply, partly due to increased demand and partly because they are being locked away in landfills instead of being reused.

So, you've decided it might be an idea to get it repaired after all. Where do you go ? Here's a small list of Computer Repair people in different parts of the country (please let us know if you know of someone to add to this list):

After consulting with the repair people, you've decided that it's beyond repair after all. However, someone might still have a use for it so what to do now ? One option is to sell it on an online trading site such as:

Noone wants to buy it ? Well, maybe you could donate it to a worthy cause. These people accept old computers and will refurbish them and either sell or donate them to community organisations, schools, etc.:

Another option is to pay to have the computer recycled, knowing that it will be recycled appropriately with the minimum amount of material being landfilled and the remainder being disposed of relatively safely (as opposed to this way).

The Dell Recycling programme seems to have some promise, and is operating in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

By the way, we'd like to add to these lists of suppliers, so if you know of anyone please let us know.