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Earth Day

Are You in a Toxic Relationship With Your Gadgets?

Most people don’t realize they’re in a toxic relationship with their gadgets. Studies show the average American discards 65 pounds of e-waste every year. Every gadget that ends up in the landfill sends heavy metals and other health-threatening toxins into our air, soil and water.

But here’s the good news: Recycling devices,especially our beloved mobile phones, is on the rise.

Responsible e-waste recycler eCycle Best helped keep 34,000 American gadgets out of the landfill since Earth Day 2013. Of these, 21,000 were smartphones, 11,000 laptops, and 2,000 tablets were recycled.

Recycling just one cell phone saves enough energy to power a laptop for 44 hours, keeps harmful toxins out of the environment, and closes the loop by putting gently used smartphones back on the market for someone else to enjoy.

To highlight the pros (and cons) of our tech obsession, eCycle Best created this handy infographic

Dave Kruchinin, CEO of eCycle Best, is hopeful that American consumers are getting wiser when it comes to throwing away their phones, tablets and laptops. “Although the numbers are relatively small when compared to overall amount of e-waste the country has generated,” he explains, “I believe that these numbers prove the increasing green awareness among American electronic consumers.”

Kruchinin encourages tech lovers to remember that much e-waste is not actually waste at all, but rather equipment and electronic parts that can be marketable for reuse or recycled for materials recovery. If one million consumers recycle laptops and other devices, they could save energy equivalent to electricity used by 3,657 homes annually.

Article by eCycle Best CEO Dave Kruchinin

04/21/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Earth Day 2012

written by Walter Wang

Today is Earth Day, which marks the anniversary of the ‘official’ birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. All over the world, people organize events to raise awareness of the need to preserve the environment through actions such switching to alternative energy, recycling, energy efficiency,

04/22/2012 0 comment

Clean Transportation

Celebrate with NASA as Earth Day Turns 40

written by Environmental News Network

One of the benefits we noted when humanity first was able observe the earth from above our atmosphere, from outer space, is that it enabled us to gain a new perspective on how very special our planet is. Viewed from a distance, it is obvious that we are all living in one global environment. And from a distance, this environment doesn’t look as vast as it does from our vantage point on earth.

The land looks more precious, the seas less like unlimited places to discharge our wastes, and the atmosphere, less like a place to emit air pollution at night so no one sees it, to the fragile envelope which, more than anything, makes earth the special place it is.

Indeed, it is the atmosphere that permits life as we know it to flourish on earth. And we owe most of this new knowledge to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration!

04/20/2010 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Beyond the Limits of Earth Day: Turning Up the Heat on Climate

written by Yale Environment 360

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, an event that has attracted millions to environmental causes. But winning passage of meaningful legislation on climate change requires more than slogans and green talk — it demands intense, determined political action.

Size doesn’t matter.

Or at least, size is not the only thing that matters. In 21st century American democracy, massive public support is certainly desirable, especially over the long run. But what really counts with Congress is intensity.

A huge majority of Americans favor gun control, for example. According to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, four out of five believe a police permit should be required for the purchase of a firearm.

04/12/2010 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Will power lines sink offshore wind? Money talks

written by Jeff Kart

The news out of New York was big. The New York Power Authority is working on rules for siting 120 megawatts of offshore wind turbines in Lakes Erie and Ontario.

But a bigger wind and water story was hatched this week in the Great Plains. President Barack Obama, in an Earth Day speech in Iowa, said his administration is clearing the red tape for siting windmills on the outer continental shelf.

Forbes.com reports that the Department of Interior’s Mineral and Management Service will grant wind developers leases and easements to erect wind farms on the shelf, along with rights of way to wire wind power from water to land. There’s been a moratorium on offshore wind development for about four years in the United States; all the offshore wind is in Europe for now.

04/24/2009 0 comment