Next Step Recycling

On my first day of graduate school, I came to a quick realization that education has become even more technolo-fied in the five years since I finished college. Everything works around the assumption that each student has a laptop at-the-ready during class. No paper syllabus, no power-point handout. Just a flash drive to plug into everyone's outsourced brains.

Not having a computer was a frustrating experience and made for an inconvenient start to taking classes. I was irritated--do we really need expensive electronic devices to learn and be trained to sit in front of human beings and talk therapeutically!?  I didn't like feeling pressured to buy a device I otherwise didn't need and really didn't think was necessary for the task at hand. Lately, stories of the toxic waste produced by old computer parts in landfills have come to my attention. The precious metals mined for the internal workings! The delicate systems that give up after 5 years and are useless!

Anyway, I was fortunate to be given a used Mac ibook that is about 5 years old by a friend. What I really want to tell you about, though, is a very wonderful place I visited today...Next Step Recycling. This is a non-profit that collects donations of used electronics (including alarm clocks, DVD players, computers, cell phones, random cords---everything!), fixes them to be useable (or sold for parts) and then has a retail store to sell them!!! I went there to find a S-video cord to connect my hand-me-down TV to my thrift-store DVD player. (I did. It was $2).  The place made me so happy! All the things that they were saving from the landfill, and making available to people that will actually use them! Affordable electronics for people who need them, but don't need them new! Giving consumers another choice besides buying new from companies they take issue with! I love Eugene because this is typical fare--it makes sense, and is a refreshing change from the status quo.