Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - Demo - (Page 36)

11 Waste For his work with WIN, Alex was one of the top 10 volunteers recognized in the 2006 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. 6 imagine ➜ being dumped. Our team went about raising awareness in several ways. We started off with advertisements in local newspapers and the schools. We sent out a flyer with a list of places to recycle e-waste locally and instructions for donating computers to be refurbished. We also made several presentations at the local elementary and middle schools. We knew, however, that a lasting solution to e-waste would require laws to be passed. We contacted our district’s state representative, Peter Lewiss, and state representative Art Handy, who was pushing for an ewaste bill in Rhode Island. By the time our team met with Reps. Handy and Lewiss, we had gone over the bill several times, and we thought it was too complicated. It required all manufacturers to take back their computers, which is practical, but it would add a recycling fee to the initial cost of the computers. Since Rhode Island is so small, people could just drive a half-hour out of state and buy a computer there to avoid the fee. We believed that the bill would have a better chance of passing if it were simplified just to ban the improper disposal of e-waste. We spent the spring of 2005 raising awareness and testifying in front of the House Environment Committee and the Senate Environment Committee. In the end, the bill was not ratified. Undeterred, we took a sample ordinance we’d drafted to the town council. With a little touching up, the council passed our ordinance, 7-0. The town council then asked Representative Lewiss and Senator Algiere to introduce the ordinance as a statewide bill for 2006. In the spring of 2006, we testified at the state house for the new bill and collected over 370 signatures petitioning for the bill. A mirror bill was also being pushed for by State Senator Susan Sosnowski. Bills H7789 and S2509 Sub A became law on July 8, 2006, making Rhode Island the fourth state with e-waste legislation. A Global Green Message Because e-waste is a global problem, we’re spreading our project internationally. We first tested this idea with a school in Mexico, where one of our teammates has a contact. We shipped a full media center—11 computers, a 3-in-1 scanner/copier/printer, and a digital projector—to Yaocalli, a school in Mexico City. We visited the school in April 2007 and made presentations to educate the students about e-waste with the help of a Mexican WIN Team, a group of students who helped us set up the media center and made the presentations in Spanish. Thanks to a student I met while working on the 2005 UNEP Children’s World Summit on the Environment in Japan, we have shipped two computer centers to Africa, one to an Internet café in Cameroon and one to a cultural center in Nigeria. We now have WIN teams operating in Mexico, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Kenya who are helping us locate needy schools and taking the responsibility for computer installation and maintenance, as well as recycling the computers when they reach the end of their life. We are even going to make a presentation to the city council of Cambridge, England, and attempt to create a UK WIN team. We all benefit from technology and electronic tools, and I think we have the responsibility to make sure the benefits are not outweighed by damage to the environment. Now, with WIN teams taking off in other countries, we’re making sure that today’s technology does not become tomorrow’s toxic trash. It started with a team of fifth graders looking to make a difference in their community. Just imagine what could happen if we all did that: work to make one positive change. Who knows how far it could go? i Alex Lin was named one of ten National Honorees for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards in 2006 and won a 2007 Brower Youth Award for his work with Project WIN. The team as a whole has won several other awards. Learn more about WIN at http://w-i-n.ws March/April 2008 http://w-i-n.ws

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - Demo

Imagine Magazine - March/April 2008 Contents Letters Big Problems Big Picture In My Own Words Putting E-Waste in Its Place Big Juice Making Waves What Does "Green" Mean? Into the Woods Swimming with Whale Sharks Crash Course in Costa Rica Selected Opportunities & Resources Hooked on Logistics Off the Shelf Word Wise Middle Ground One Step Ahead Exploring Career Options Planning Ahead for College Students Review Creative Minds Imagine Sudoku Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - Demo

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