It is budget time and as I ask for more devices for my students, I wonder about the social and environmental cost behind my request. I’ve seen the videos and heard the horror stories of the “recycling” plants in China and around the world. I worry about the personal cost to people in these situations too, and wonder what is being done about it.
Since our school has started an iPad program I thought I would look into how Apple was thinking about sustainability. Apple says they are committed to transparency and are a member of different third party organizations to confirm this. I started reading their report on sustainable practice.
I guess I realized that everyone wants to be committed to sustainable practice but actual action is harder to take. From their report it looks like Apple firmly believes in helping their workers (including third party workers) gain fair wages, working conditions and success. I think all these things are true, but I do wonder about third party monitoring.
Going back to earlier post ideas, I wonder about recycling and design process. How can we start designing computers and tablets, and whatever else to be fully repurposed. I heard a program (forever ago it seems) on the CBC about tech designers looking at how the companies would have to be responsible for the waste (it would be included in the price or something) they then started talking about renting equipment. The point was you could pay the company (Apple, Samsung, Motorola, etc.) for a specific package, when the time to renew that package came up the company would take the phone and hopefully reuse the different components to make a new phone or tablet, etc.
Cradle to Cradle has been a focus for me these last couple of weeks, if it doesn’t show.
Joe Teft 