Rather than sending 5-year-old obsolete computers to recyclers who strip the precious metals from computers before dumping them in landfills, Gilbert’s Highland High School and Highland Junior High are sending theirs to India and West Africa.
Five years ago, a technology budget override allowed Gilbert Unified School District to refresh, or replace, all obsolete technology on a five-year cycle. This year was Highland’s turn for new technology.
Sheila Scanlan, an AP environmental science teacher at Highland and adjunct faculty member at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, saw a solution to two problems.
Besides finding a way to extend the life of technology before it ended up in a landfill, Scanlan saw a way to help those in other parts of the world.
“It’s like the saying, ‘You give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for life,’” Scanlan said. “It’s more than just charity.”
In this case, the computers will be sent to India, Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria, said Osee Romeo Tcheupgoum, the associate facilitator of University Community Partnership for Social Action Research Network, part of the Psychology Department at Arizona State University.
“We at the UCPSARnet believe that education is one of the most powerful instruments for human dignity, the modern world and is a central instrument for human development on a foundation for sustained cultural and socio-economic growth,” Tcheupgoum said.
The computers will be wiped clean, upgraded and shipped to Ghana, where they will be distributed, Tcheupgoum said.
“It’s still a usable technology for a place that has nothing else and that needs it,” Scanlan said.
It’s also one more way beyond collecting batteries, CFLs and old cell phones, that Scanlan and her students can help change the world, she said.
“There’s a saying that’s been circulating on Facebook,” she said, “It’s something like, ‘If you think one person can’t make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.’ That’s what we’re trying to do, to be that mosquito.”
In years prior, the district has paid for recycling companies to strip the precious metals from the computers, said Jennifer Merrill, the technology projects coordinator at Gilbert school district. The remaining plastics are sent to a landfill.
“Every year, we have teachers and employees who offer to buy the computers from the school,” Merrill said.
But while the computers are still usable, the district is required to recycle them, Merrill said. Typically, a recycler pays about 15 cents per pound. In a previous year, the district had auctioned off computers, but lost money, she said.
“Basically, the district can’t make money and it can’t lose money,” Merrill said.
Obsolete laptops and desktop computers typically become e-waste, the term given to discarded electronic products.
When UCPSARnet agreed to buy the computers, it agreed to buy them at an even higher rate than what would be paid by a recycler, Merrill said.
The 341 desktops were purchased at $7 each and the 126 laptops at $5 each, for a total of $3,017, she said.
The project, Scanlan said, is something other schools, districts and even companies, could do. She hopes that next year when the district again refreshes the technology, it will be able to buy computers from Gilbert school district again.
“We can get discouraged,” Scanlan said. “With all the walls and hurdles, but I learned I can be a mosquito.”
Next, the project is looking to collect donations to help cover the cost of shipping and processing, a cost estimated at approximately $4,000, Scanlan said.
Contact writer: (480) 898-5645 or sspring@evtrib.com
Engaged Voter posted at 4:08 pm on Mon, Jul 23, 2012.
"In years prior, the district has paid for recycling companies to strip the precious metals from the computers, said Jennifer Merrill, the technology projects coordinator at Gilbert school district. The remaining plastics are sent to a landfill."
Yes, landfills in China, Africa, and India.
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/21/132204954/after-dump-what-happens-to-electronic-waste
"It's the only part of the world where you'll go and see thousands of women on any given day that are sitting ... basically cooking printed circuit boards," he says. "As a result, they're breathing all of the brominated flame retardants and the lead and tin that are being heated up. You smell it in the air. You get headaches as soon as you enter this area. It really is quite sad."
Now, where does Sheila Scanlan think these computers they're sending will be in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years at best?
If you said "poisoning local children who get paid to smelt the material" - give yourself a cookie.
Engaged Voter posted at 4:14 pm on Mon, Jul 23, 2012.
“It’s still a usable technology for a place that has nothing else and that needs it,”
I was going to list places right here in this country that fit the above description.
(have you been to an inner-city school in D.C.? They could use those desktops!)
But it is a huge list, would take at least a dozen comment windows to list them all.
Sheila Scanlan is fond of old sayings, so here is another one - "Charity begins at home".
soricobob posted at 5:27 am on Tue, Jul 24, 2012.
Not for nothing, but in1993 I "recycled" school computers into the hands of students in my district who did not have them at home. The High School computer club "cleaned" them, and the parents of the "receiving" students had to be given an in-service in the computer's use. Other than that, there were no strings attached. The program is ongoing, and has proven to be a success over the years. Why we assume everyone in our district has a computer (because we have one) is beyond me. If the Gilbert administrators realized who unfair the playing field is for students who don't have a computer at home, maybe they would not have to look outside the school district boundaries for worthwhile recipients.
WesternConnections posted at 1:08 pm on Mon, Jul 30, 2012.
The GPS administration really shot themselves in the foot with this -- five year old computers are so obsolete that they can't be used in GPS schools at all? One of the reasons given for delaying self-contained gifted classrooms was the cost of new technology. Just recently, the district adopted a "bring your own technology" program and offered to sell laptops to parents so their children can participate in class. On top of it all, the administration claims to need million$ more, or the classrooms and teachers will pay the price if the override fails. At the same time, GPS superintendents can't figure out to repurpose technology assets they already have. That's not good stewardship of local tax money, especially with increased scrutiny just before an election.
In elementary schools, there's usually ONE computer in a classroom. The teacher uses the computer for essential tasks throughout the day, but the students also use the computer to take AR tests. The "obsolete" computers only need to be connected to the Internet to be functional for AR tests. We have seen kids become frustrated at their limited access to a computer for those AR tests, especially at the end of a quarter when so many kids are trying to meet their AR goals at the last minute. There are not enough computers in the library or in laptop carts to meet all these needs, but the answer is not to complain that there's no money in the budget for a cyclical demand. Those "obsolete" computers might solve a problem, benefit students and delay the day of reckoning in a landfill. That's just one little idea for how to do more with less.