Marke Andrews
Sun
Ifny Lachance (left), holding a sound card, and volunteer Sean Haines look over computer equipment at the Free Geek Community Technology Centre. In the background, build co-ordinator Stephen Samuel leads other volunteers in the assembly of computers. Photograph by: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
Every year, Canadians get rid of 70,000 tonnes of electronic equipment, the equivalent of 2.6 million computers. And while there are plenty of companies that say they recycle computer hardware — which contains such toxic substances as mercury, lead, barium and cadmium — all too often it is shipped overseas to Asia and Africa, where impoverished adults and children expose themselves to environmental danger, sometimes melting the lead in a frying pan that will later be used to cook the family dinner.
One Vancouver recycler guarantees its practices are above board. Free Geek Vancouver, a non-profit recycler, is the only British Columbia organization — and one of only two in Western Canada — approved by the Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle-based watchdog for the dumping of e-waste. (The 1989 Basel Convention reached an accord among 170 nations that led to the 1995 Basel Ban, which forbids developed countries from dumping their hazardous waste shipments in developing countries. However, the ban is not enforced.)
Free Geek Vancouver, which recently received a $42,000 enviroFund grant from Vancity Credit Union, accepts 24 tonnes monthly of old computers, printers, fax machines, scanners, computer-related hardware, games consoles and cellphones at its East Vancouver warehouse.
Once a computer reaches Free Geek, the five staffers and more than 800 volunteers test and assess the equipment. If a computer fails — meaning it is deemed too old, too slow or too damaged to be rebuilt — it is marked with an X and is stripped of its recyclable parts. What’s left goes to a Canadian smelter.
Computers that pass are rebuilt by the volunteers who, while not getting paid for their work, receive a free rebuilt computer after helping to rebuild five of the units. For the volunteers, many of whom have no experience with electronics, they learn how a computer works and how to keep it running in a pressure-free environment.
“We tell them not to worry if they break something, because it was donated,” Ifny Lachance, one of the five staff coordinators, said.
Free Geek pays its overhead and its staff from what it earns from scrap sales (one-third of revenue) and from sales at its on-site thrift store (two-thirds of revenue), where people can buy rebuilt computers and working parts like motherboards and processors.
Material on the rebuilt hard drives of donated computers are rewritten four times to ensure that data are secure and cannot be copied. Failed hard drives are crushed and then smelted.
Lachance maintains that every step of the Free Geek’s e-waste process is transparent, every bill of lading available so that the trail of material can be traced. For this reason, BAN has embraced the Vancouver organization.
“Free Geek Vancouver went a little bit beyond our standards, and it’s very rare to find a recycler who does that,” said Sarah Westervelt, BAN’s e-stewardship director, which audits companies and organizations. “They absolutely walk the talk. We’d love to clone them all around the globe.”
RECIRCUITING
Organization: Free Geek Vancouver
Address: 1820 Pandora St.
Website: freegeekvancouver.org
Materials recycled: Computers, computer parts, printers, fax machines, scanners, games consoles, cellphones.
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