Monday, 17 August 2020

 

Tech recycling - the environmental challenge of digital times: TorontotheBetter speaks with pioneer Dennis Maslo of Computation

 In 2020 most everbybody knows they should recycle their houehold waste, whether it is "green"  or not, but when it comes to our ever-increasing tech footprint (cellphones, computers, printers and other electronic gadgets) most of us are less sure about what to do and how to do it. In an economic system built on profit through increasing profits  and decreasing expenses the problem is likely to grow as in fact it has, since the advent of the industrial age in the nineteenth century. Currently producers gain an advantage though built-in obsolescence as users have to buy new versions on a regular basis, and so help to sustain the increasing profit margins that capitalist investors seek. The inevitable result is what we have: growing amounts of garbage, an increasing proportion of which is comtech hardware. Until there is a broad political commitment to real cost economics, where producers are responsible for the waste the create our environmental problems will not be solved. In the meantime there are some less damaging options and everbody should know about them. 

Comtech recycler Computation is a long time TorontotheBetter directory listee so we recently spoke to founder Dennis Maslo about what they do and where we are as a society in managng the challenge of technological waste. Computation was a pioneer in its field and Dennis told us about his own wakeup call when more than twenty years ago he he saw "a computer by an elevator downtown marked as 'garbage for removal' and was iinspired to set up Comptation as a solution to the problem. Twenty years later Computation thrives, though the tech recycling challenge has grown as more of us carry and use more of this equipment every day and constant technological changes enforce a rapid pace of  obsolescence. It is a key problem of our digital times so TorontotheBetter salutes Dennis as a pioneer with the vision and commitment to help us confront it. 

To use Computation's services see their Torontothebetter directory listing at www,torontothebetter.net/lst_computation.htm and for a full account of Dennis' personal journey look for our interview in "People of TorontotheBetter section" at www.torontothebetter.net/2peopletgbd.html.  


# posted by Taodhg @ 11:57 am
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