Page 26 - Highway Info Guide 24-25
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BCUATSEINGEOSRSYSHEREVRIECES
RECYCLE YOUR E-WASTE
RESPONSIBLY
Electronic Cemetery was founded in 2009 helping those less privileged giving people
by Jami Nash. Being an avid environmental access to technology and appliances and
philanthropist and coming from a horticultural reducing the gap between the haves and the
background, he saw the impact electronic waste have not’s. Upon collection once processed
has on the environment and an opportunity to we issue a certificate of safe disposal via
create a legacy for future generations. This email. With prior request all serial numbers
became a means to dissipate the rapidly rising or asset verification can be catalogued on a
piles of e-waste, but also an opportunity to spreadsheet if need be, for auditors. In line
address the social disparity between the rich with POPI regulations we treat data security
and poor. With e-Waste accounting for over very seriously. All hard drives are either wiped
70% of all toxic waste world-wide and having a clean or physically damaged. We are EWASA
long term impact on the environment, causing certified with a scheduled trade permit for the
untold health issues and damage to the water scope of operations and registered on the
table, this became a battle he was determined SAWIC registry.
to tackle.
As our environment swiftly moves towards
Having grown up and spent a lot of time in rural degradation and unnatural ruin, our contribution
areas, speaking fluent Zulu and Xhosa, and is therefore never ending. We as citizens of
seeing first hand the ravishes of poverty, he this Earth need to become aware of our own
began salvaging and refurbishing redundant impact, whether small or big; it’s time to make
equipment in order to provide a much needed a change. A change can be made with little to
service to the environment and disadvantaged no effort at all and in doing so we preserve our
communities. environment for the future generations. United
Nations identifies e-Waste as an urgent and
We have been working on our craft for over growing problem. The UN Environmental
a decade servicing some of the biggest Programme has issued a wide-ranging report
government and corporate giants this country warning that e-Waste in China and South Africa
has to offer. We collect all your unwanted could double or even quadruple within the
or broken electronic waste and end of life next decade, whereas India could experience
assets, refurbish what we are able to and a five-fold rise. Major hazards exist in the
make frequent donations to the individuals in unregulated and informal recycling of circuit
need, less fortunate schools or societies or a boards and techno gadgets, as processes
charity of your choice, with quality refurbished like backyard incineration, for the retrieval of
IT equipment. We then sell the rest to those gold, generates toxic gases, while also being
individuals who are unable to afford brand widely inefficient. The whole point of the report
new items at below current market prices is to encourage some global cooperation in
with a warranty. The rest of the e-Waste that setting up modern and safe recycling facilities
is obsolete or not economically viable to in the affected countries and to remodel the
repair, we manually disassemble and recycle solution. It is therefore imperative that we
accordingly. We dispose the non-recyclable tackle such problems in the correct way, with
fractions in an environmentally sound manner the correct resources.
and have made great progress towards
realizing our dream of zero waste. In doing so Editorial supplied by Electronic Cemetery
we are creating jobs, helping the environment,
24 | ELECTRONIC CEMETERY
