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16 Aug 01 - computers; grants; PR perspective; toys; Eastern Europe; job; deconstruction ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Mike Ruby, Envirometrics, Seattle, WA: COMPUTER REUSE Most of the major manufacturers of computers use proprietary motherboards. So, when it comes time to upgrade, you need to buy a whole new computer even though most everything else is perfectly good. But they don't really change their case designs that often. If someone really knew the branded machines (such as an experienced service person), they could produce a list of the most recent motherboards that would fit into earlier cases, allowing the user to determine if a simple upgrade is possible. The technical support and parts supply folks at the computer manufacturers will not give you this information. When I talked to one, they quite bluntly said that they want you to buy a whole new computer, since they make too little money on selling parts. So, is there anyone or a website that can give cross-references for the branded computers to the motherboards that will fit? (For example, "For the Dell Dimension XPSP100 series, the most recent motherboard that will fit it is a Dell Dimension something-or-other.") E-mail: mruby (A T) envirometrics (D O T) com Phone: (206) 633-4456 --------------------- From Dwight Mercer, waste diversion program, City of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada: I am looking for existing examples of a municipal grant program, whereby the municipality offers a grant to a non-profit or for-profit company to partially fund the development of a waste audit. The target group would be the Industrial-Commercial-Institutional (ICI) sector. Thanks. E-mail: dmercer ( A T ) cityregina ( D O T ) com --------------------- From Sego Jackson, Snohomish County Solid Waste Management Division, Everett, WA (forwarded by Marcia Rutan and Karen May): The article linked to below is fascinating and I believe well worth your time for a quick visit. It gives interesting insight into how corporate public relations folks perceive environmental activism. Go to http://www.epublicrelations.org and scroll down to the third story on the left side: "One small town destroys major portion of a national pesticide market: Seven lessons for PR, marketing and branding folks." Sego's e-mail: sego (D O T) jackson (A T) co (D O T) snohomish (D O T) wa (D O T) us --------------------- Excerpted from an article by Julian Barnes in the 8/16/01 New York Times: Each year, McDonald's distributes 1.5 billion toys worldwide, more than Hasbro or Mattel. And McDonald's and its fast-food competitors together give away nearly a third of all the toys distributed in the United States. Nearly all of these small, plastic fast-food giveaway toys are made in China. Note from Tom: These statistics are from an article about the increasing number of recalls, for safety reasons, of fast-food giveaway toys. --------------------- Link to the executive summary of the final report on the project, "Waste Management Policies in Central and Eastern European Countries: Current Policies and Trends" (forwarded by Barbara Zaccheo): http://www.eurowaste.org/art.asp?id=21 --------------------- Link to the listing for a Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Waste Prevention job in Boston (forwarded by Steve Long): http://www.state.ma.us/dep/bas/files/01_4491.htm This job primarily deals with recycling, but includes some source reduction elements. --------------------- Link to two recent publications on deconstruction, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (forwarded by Gary Liss and Roger Guttentag): - http://www.huduser.org/publications/destech/deconstruct.html - http://www.huduser.org/publications/destech/decon.html The full texts of the publications are in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format. - end -