This semester was my first semester at CSUS and my first as an environmental studies major. Starting at square one, more or less, ENVS10 was my first class for the subject since high school (yes I actually had environmental science my junior year of high school). I've always been a science major (marine biology before) and in the past few years I've become more concerned about the globe as a whole than with individual oceanic species. Recently, I've been trying to make changes in my life to be "greener" like using less water, buying environmentally friendly products, using less gasoline, etc and it's a slow process but it starts to become part of you and rather easy. It's about choices, and making the green choice has being instinctual for me.
Anyway, as I am older than the average undergrad and need to be looking at career choices I figured volunteering with CEAR seemed like a good idea. They are local and providing a very important service, and not to mention being pioneers in recycling. I firmly believe that the human race consumes far too much that becomes useless to us too quickly and because of that CEAR and organizations like it MUST exist. Otherwise, millions of tons of obsolete electronics would end up in landfills or incinerators.
My experience with the e-waste collection was entirely positive. It was a beautiful day to be outside working. Our CEAR representative, Jane, couldn't have been friendlier or easier to work with. We chatted for awhile, had some coffee, and waited for the first drop. They arrived promptly and since we were so motivated things moved into the dumpster rapidly. Our pace was ahead of the arrival of cars dropping off items for awhile, but we never had more than two cars waiting at a given time. We took delivery of many CRT monitors and large TV's which I handled myself, against Jane's wishes, but like I said I was motivated. We made an even base with the TV's and then started stacking all the other items on top which included computer accessories, kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, printers, and so many other random items I can't remember. Much to our surprise there were even a few modern LCD TV's and monitors dropped off! Eventually we started throwing things onto the pile which had a certain amount of satisfaction to it (think Office Space, the scene destroying the printer).
The day was a success, but over too soon for me. I wanted to keep going, all day long, and fill the whole container! By noon when the truck showed up to take it away we had filled it less than a quarter full, but Jane said it was a good amount and I think it was. It was a highly rewarding experience overall. The people dropping off junk were appreciative and interested in learning about e-waste disposal and that was good to see! I was glad that I got to volunteer for CERN. I do think that I could work for an organization like them in the future, or at least be an intern for them before graduation.
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| We got A LOT of old CRT monitors and TV's |
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| This was the total e-waste for the day. The big white thing is an electronic marker board... |
Below is a readout of my ecological footprint from footprintnetwork.org. I find the numbers astonishing! If accurate, it's simple proof that our lifestyles are unsustainable. But, I can't imagine being able to effect enough changes to be able to go from needing 5 earths to 1 and still be living the same life.
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| This is my calculated ecological footprint, NOT SO GOOD. |
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