For those of you who missed it, here’s a link to the KSLG-hosted blogger round table on the Humboldt/Mendocino marijuana culture. Thanks to Kym — whose deep knowledge on the subject can be heard on the show — for the heads-up.
Speaking of radio (and blogs), don’t miss the opportunity this weekend to offload your e-waste for free at the Redwood Acres Fairgrounds. Tom on KGOE has some tips on what to bring (TVs, computers, VCRs, DVD players, cell phones) and what not to bring (regular old non e-waste). Radio KHUM says don’t bother bringing old microwaves or electric garden tools — the nice people offering this free service don’t want it.
A tip for those concerned about their privacy- remove the hard drive from your computer prior to dropping it off. You never know where these will end up or who might want to get all the information from your old computer!
Most e-waste ends up overseas…
1. Who is doing the collection?
2. Why do they (apparently) only want electronics that contain circuit boards?
3. Where will this stuff end up?
Free collection? Sounds way, way too good to be true (“true” meaning healthy for the environment).
More information, please.
Or learn how to format your drive in a way that makes data recovery impossible. Or leave your hard drive outside for the winter.
According to Tom on KGOE the collection is offered by East Sac E-Waste Collections. Ph: 1-916-871-5711
Here’s the post from Craigslist:
Dare I wonder whether anyone promoting this collection event has inquired as to how this org manages to afford traveling around the state collecting specific types of electronic waste for free?
How quickly we turn a blind eye if it means avoiding a $25 dumping fee.
Thanks Heraldo, we had so much fun doing this and we all felt like we were learning so much, honing our understanding, we ended up spending another hour and a half talking at Curley’s. Jen is a wonderful interviewer that got us to open up–sometimes painfully about a very secret culture.
Thanks for being willing to discuss it so openly. Great job, all of you.
I have to admit, there is not much info on these ewaste guys.
No web site. I did find this.
east sac e waste collections
Google Map and Satellite View
50 nut tree
vacaville, CA 95688
(916)871-5711
* Accepts from: Public Business Government
* Collects…….: Bare Crts CRT Devices CRT Glass Uweds
Mail Address
3927 D Street
Sacramento, CA 95819
I don’t know where this stuff ends up or if it goes overseas where slave labor recycles it. I have read that happens sometimes.
But if you live in an apartment or rent a room and have no place to store this stuff, it is probably better than putting it next to the dumpster.
Thanks for the reminder about the e- waste event. I remembered it up until this morning, then forgot about it.
Be prepared to wait if you go. There were maybe 20 cars ahead of me when I went there around 10:30. The line went all the way to Harris Street and cars were waiting in the street to get into the line.
Got rid of the first ever computer I ever owned- a 120mhz Packard Bell- a broken fax machine, a computer monitor, my first ever Motorola analog cell phone and two joysticks. Wasn’t sure they’d take the joysticks so I only took two. I have more to get rid of.
There was an Obamaton a couple cars ahead of me. The lady had a bunch of i-Macs she dropped off, among other things.
As far as why these guys go around doing it, I get the impression they do fundraising for various groups. The sign at Redwood Acres said something about fund raising for Humboldt Fire District#1.
I suspect they keep a certain amount of the proceeds. I know the guy that took my name only wrote down my computer that I dropped off. I starting listing the other stuff I had and he said he only needed to write down the computer.
Maybe the computers go to the fire district and the waste guys keep the money from everything else?
9:15 am,
Kinda makes you wonder what county and city officials and their subordinate department employees do with the hard drives when they upgrade or change their computer systems.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
10:03 am,
computer information on hard drives is +’s (pluses) and -’s (minuses). You can’t completely wipe a hard drive clean. You can melt it down though. Hacking into government, media and other personal computer systems is not that difficult if you know what you are doing. In fact, existing is the story of two Ukiah(?) high school students who hacked into the federal National Defense Computer System. I believe it was about 10-12 years ago.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – -5th District
At the last MCSD meeting, this discussion came up and a figure of $30,000 was cited as the expense. Some Directors are considering spending this money to have a collection day in McKinleyville. I am still clouded on the particulars though. Maybe in future meetings it will be discussed more thoroughly.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – -5th District
Many e-waste products also go to non-industrial countries; poor countries and communities, etc…
Pull out your hard drive(s) and melt them with slow heat; or, destroy the hard drive – bit by bit, piece by piece.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
Great job to Heraldo for entertaining the blogging community with various topics and issues. As citizens, we may not always agree on various points; but, the open ended communications is forward progress.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
If it’s costing McKinleyvillains $30K, MCSD sure as hell better figure a way to only collect from MCSD customers. Or maybe they should just send Mayo on some more junkets around the country. Maybe he could personally deliver our e-waste someplace nice, such as Thailand.
I remember listening to a show on KMUD a couple of years ago about how the Chinese (propaganda alert) use their prison labor to do the work of disassembling the circuit boards; which as we know, contain heavy metals and other toxics. I’m sure it’s true. When it comes to exposing the crimes of other countries, we suddenly have a press. That is until some business is conducted. Or course we are perfect regardless.
But not to be too cynical, the program for taking this stuff is a good one. I shudder to think of how many of us just took the easy way out and dumped the electronica in the bottom of the dumpster.
So, you can’t get everything off the hard drive- what about when you take it into a professional and ask them to “wipe it clean” get everything out of it? We did this with our office computers we donated to schools, etc. Are you saying that their still could be information in them? It’s too long to do anything about it now, but there was a lot of client information in those.
“there” not their.
To remove your data from a hard drive, you should use secure erase techniques. When you delete something in the normal course of PC operations, you’re just “telling” the system that the area wherein those bits of data were stored is now available for reallocation. As a (flawed) analogy: you are keeping the book on the shelves, but removing its entry from the card catalog. In a secure erase, you overwrite the bits you wish to delete with random-as-you-can 1s and 0s. Repeat the overwriting process enough times, and there’s no way to recover the initial data.
There’s no need to melt anything.
Here are some relevant links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_erasure
How to really erase your hard drive
Good Points and hats off to 10:12am,
Several computer geeks also have instructed me that the magnetic impressions on the hard drive disks never come completely off unless you make the attempt – degaussing (beat me to the punch, good job). These impressions are supposedly the information stored upon the disk(s) within the hard drive. The layers of saved information is like taking sheet after sheet of membraned materials off of each other in reverse order. One can erase the top layer, but the previous lower (bottom) layer still exists if you don’t work backward on every layer / level. I like the best recommendation though – destruction of the disk. Low Heat does quite well too, although most likely not preferred by the professionals. Or, take a screw driver and hammer to disassemble while using a cloth over the hard drive to contain shattered pieces when appropriate. Then, discard the e-waste appropriately, usually in Eureka’s Waste Transfer Station / City Garbage.
The main point about this computer hard drive deletion issue is to always ask the question, “is all the information expunged?”
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
One important point that is neglected here is it is quite entertaining to read about how a person became jealous of their significant other and went into their email account and copied all of their emails. A totally blank hard disk is not as entertaining.
Think of the nerdy and socially inept computer refurbishing people and how the leftover scandals on your hard disk could greatly enrich their day. Without such entertainment, they will be left to post to rants and raves on craigslist lying about how much money they make.
Hi Everyone,
First off thank you to everyone who brought e waste we collected over 150000 pounds at the redwood county fairgrounds. To answer your questions I get paid by the State of California through an advaned recycling fee that the consumer pays when they buy a telivsion laptop or monitor. Second all of my e waste goes to a processing plant in Hayward where it is then shipped to a giant shredder in L.A. All hard drives are shredded all boards are shredded and then it is sent to Canada to the smelter where it is broken down to its base and then sold around the world. The CRT glass is sent to a place called Samsung Corning where it is made into CRT again. The recycler that does this is E Recycling in Hayward.
They are E stewarts and affiliated with the Basil Action Network