Recycling Cell PhonesWritten by Sharon Housley
Recycle Cell Phones Technological advancements providing users with improved reception through integrated antenna systems, reduced size and weight of cell phones, along with numerous feature sets, and storage improvements have caused bulk of cellular phone users and enthusiasts to upgrade to new and improved handsets. The low cost of cell phones and added technological improvements mean that majority of cellular phone users are on their 2nd or 3rd generation hand set. Environmental Concerns What many don't realize is that in many cases, materials used to construct cell phones are toxic. Toxic elements found in many of today's cell phones can include arsenic, in semi-conductors and lead in solder material. While materials in a single phone are minimal consider number of discarded cell phones in relatively short time technology has been available. The placement of these devices in landfills will cause long lasting damage and harm to environment. Recycling aged wireless equipment is a sensible alternative. Valuable materials can be recovered from used wireless devices in a number of different ways. In some cases, certain components may be separated by manual or simple mechanical means. The components can often be reused or melted down for alternative uses. Cell Phone Disposal - What Options Exist? Cell Phone Disposal - What Options Exist? The cell phone industry, understanding concerns related to disposal of cell phones and PDAs have created alternatives to both refurbish and recycle materials in older style cellular phones. Wireless Recycling - http://www.wirelessrecycling.com - ReCellular Inc. is largest recycler and reseller of used wireless phones and accessories in wireless industry. A pioneer in charitable recycling arrangements, ReCellular has well-established partnerships with Easter Seals, March of Dimes, and National Organization on Disability, Goodwill Industries, and The Body Shop. In addition, over 2,000 grassroots organizations from Boy Scout troops to religious organizations around country work to collect wireless phones to support their philanthropic efforts. Charities can raise funds by increasing community awareness and acting as a wireless collection center. Wireless Foundation - http://www.wirelessfoundation.org/DonateaPhone/index.cfm - Wireless Foundation refurbishes and provides cell phones to victims of domestic violence so that they can be used in event of an emergency. The Call To Protect campaign also collects wireless phones to benefit victims of domestic violence. Proceeds from sale of phones help fund agencies that fight domestic violence and are used to support educational efforts of Wireless Foundation. Other phones are refurbished and become lifelines for domestic violence victims when faced with an emergency situation.
| | Avoiding Allergies by Use of the Right Native Plants in the LandscapeWritten by Tom Ogren
Avoiding Allergies by Use of Right Native Plants in LandscapeMany of our most allergenic plants commonly used in landscaping in United States and Canada are indeed natives. However, it is manipulation of these plants by commercial horticulture that has, and is, causing most of huge increases we are now experiencing with allergy problems. Thirty years ago fewer than 10 percent of Americans had allergies. The official figure today is that a whopping 38 percent of us now suffer from allergies.(December 99, American College of Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology) Not too many years ago death from asthma was fairly rare. Today it is all too common and is considered epidemic. Asthma has now become number one chronic childhood disease in America. Furthermore, there is new data coming in recently that shows a strong connection between over-exposure to pollen and or mold spores and increases in other diseases such as heart disease, autism, pneumonia, and reflux disease. American Elms The landscape tree in most of America for many years was tall, stately American Elm. The American Elm used to grace streets of thousands of towns and cities and when DED, Dutch Elm Disease, started to spread and kill off these native elms, insect-pollinated, perfect-flowered elms were most often replaced with wind-pollinated, unisexual-flowered, street trees. Many things happened because of big switch from elms to these other tree species. First, elm flowers had a rich nectar source and since these trees bloomed very early in season, at a time when insect food sources were severely limited urban honeybees and butterflies depended on this food source. Since majority of street trees used to replace elms were wind-pollinated, they often lacked these nectaries and supplied no early-season food source. Soon we started to see a rapid decline in total numbers of urban honeybees and butterflies. There were other factors as well behind this decline, pollution, insecticides, and disease, but loss of crucial early-season food sources should not be underestimated. DED spread mostly from East to West across US and so has rise in allergy rates. You can actually track spread of allergy from decline of elms. The American Elms, Ulmus americana, did cause a certain amount of low-level, early spring allergy, simply because they were so very common. The over-planting of elms resulted in a lack of biodiversity and set stage for massive kill from DED. We now know that it is always a mistake to use a monoculture, to plant too much of just one species. Diversity is always a good idea in horticulture. Diversity Biodiversity is way to go when we are creating landscapes that will limit allergenic exposure. Almost any species of plants can eventually cause allergies if it is over-planted enough. All to often in our urban landscapes of today we see that landscapers have used same old plants over and over again. This overly simplistic approach to landscaping results in landscapes that lack originality and produce a numbing “sameness” to far too much of our urbanscape. When residential houses are professionally landscaped with exact same plant materials used to landscape banks, real estate offices, and dentist’s shops, we all lose. Allergy rates today are far worse in urban areas than they are out in country. Pollen allergies are worse in cities than in country, despite fact that there is much more total green matter in countryside than in city. Plant selection has been main problem.
|