I agree! Maybe we need to set up a free store over there? As you’re right, so much moving in and out… Ill be moving back downtown (near west-end) May1, I’d love to chat more about this at that point…I was trying to do this in my building near the dumpster, have a space for folks to leave their still perfectly functioning items… some tore down my sign but I’m not over trying. a little free-store kiosk, even just during summer months could be pretty cool… could probably even get a neighbourhood small grant for it as it’s pretty community oriented and meets a lot of cities goals… aaah, there are just a lot of cool things to do… I’m open to chat about this though and see where it could go.
Neighbourhood grant +++
I would be In for this - perhaps a stall at the farmers market(s)
That is a good idea to have it at a market where folks come already each weekend…have a space for people to swap or grab something, and then whatever doesn’t get taken etc, can be brought over to say, Wildlife Thrift Store, which is on Granville and Drake, thus very close to say, West-End Farmers market…
I am thinking about applying for a grant for VFC, so I’m not sure I’m allowed to do multiple projects? I have to look at it, maybe I am if one is part of neighbourhood small grants (which this would be), and other is part of greenest city grant (VFC would be)…
It could be combined into one though potentially…
Dug a bit deeper
Encorp obviously won’t let go of electronic items brought in for recycling - their financial reports for 2012/13 show that these alone generated $13million for simply delivering them to “recyclers” whom they do not disclose !
Crazy!
There are some issues with a ‘drop off your unwanted electronics stuff’ place, the biggest we dealt with while I was @FreeGeek Vancouver was rain.
We hated when people ‘donated’ items when we were closed, because the second they get touched by water they become toxic waste. Not just what the water does to the insides of the electronic ‘thing’, but what the water inevitably leeches out into the surrounding environment. Because of that, anything I found when I opened the place every morning (and I found stuff regularly) was immediately put into scrap without even being evaluated, and we always worried about adding more unnecessary pollution to the environment (even when it wasn’t our fault).
The desire to have things potentially reused and not just recycled, is a great and laudable thing that should be supported, but it should come with an understanding that ‘leaving stuff in an alley’ isn’t the same thing as a proper ‘donation’, because there is no way to no for sure what happened to that thing in the alley when no one was around, so no real safe way too approach reuse at that point.
@Scriven …makes sense.
@toptekkie that’s super curious… can you send me that report ? Or did you just find it online? I have it on my to-do list to do a bit more research and assess… but yeah hm… crazy. I wonder how many electronics that was…I guess it’s so high because high volume…I’m assuming that’s gross? I shall have to have a look at these financials myself, sounds neat. Super frustrating that they don’t disclose the recyclers…maybe we need to become shareholders so we can demand that of them…though I don’t know what their share structure is are they public, private? All things I’d look into.
Is Encorp same as Return-It? What about Product Care? I am so confused with all the various bodies a part of this “waste” mafia… I can’t wait for MMBC’s reports to come out - June or so they said (after I tweeted them , calling them out on their disposable cup fiasco)… I digress… much to uncover.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I would like to make a documentary about all this info on waste…aka the “what is REALLY going on…”…
Reports :
Have a look at epra and encorp online - both have financial statements.
Encorp is return-it
EPRA is the body that collects the fee paid on every electronic item sold
Both these bodies make millions in profits and this does not account for
the money made by the actual businesses that get revenue from the recovered
materials or unknowingly dump the components that cannot be recycled.
F