[freegeek-startup] question on recyclers - first roadblock

[Shawn Campbell]

If anyone is interested, here is 5r's web site:

http://www.5rprocessors.com/

I guess we were looking for someone local to save time and money, but if someone has time to see what they think from their web site or even call them to get their opinion, that would be great. There seems to be very limited places in the south that are in this line of business as well as attempting faithfully to keep ewaste from going overseas. It is very cool that the west coast is ahead of the time and setting standards for the rest of the states to "open their eyes". The state of TN reported that last year they keep over 5000 tons of ewaste out of the landfills, but they did not have any breakdown or other statistics, so there is really no way to determine how factual this is.

Even if we do not do business with this company, we will find a way to be triumphiant and help set the standards of not only good and proper ewaste management in the state of TN, but also have a great time spreading the gospel of technology. If we get community involvement, maybe recycling will help pay the bills, but may not be the only source of revenue.

Matteo, I appreciate very much your thoughts and insights, however one of the experiments I am planning to work on is the foundation of think clients that others have started to work on. The community I live in is growing at a very rapid rate, and I feel that many students to not get the time on technolgy they need. If we can get a few strong servers in the backend I was hoping that pentium II's and above could be utilized for thin clients.

Just for an example here is a list of the public schools in the county in which I live.

                                                                            Barfield  School            
Blackman  Elementary School 
Blackman Middle 
Blackman High 
Buchanan  School
Cedar  Grove School
Central  Middle School
Christiana  Middle School 
Christiana  School         
David  Youree School
Eagleville  School
Holloway  High School
John  Colemon School 
Kittrell  School
Lascassas  School 
LaVergne  Middle School 
La Vergne  High School
La Vergne  Primary School 
McFadden  School 
Oakland  High School
Riverdale  Hgh School
Rock Springs  Elementary School
Rock Springs  Middle School 
Rockvale  School
Roy  Waldron School   
Siegel  Middle School 
Siegel  High School
Smyrna  Elementary School
Smyrna High   School    
Smyrna  Middle School 
Smyrna  Primary School
Smyrna  West Alternative   School
Stewartsboro  School   
Stewarts  Creek Elementary   School  
Stewarts  Creek Middle   School
Thurman  Francis School 
Walter  Hill School
Wilson  Elementary School
  And there are quite a few private schools as well, all in the vacinity of about 175,000 people! We can and will make a difference.
Thanks again for the feedback, and looking out for us as we are obiviously new to this, but believe this is what we should be doing here in the south.
Until next time....
Shawn M. Campbell 
  

matteo <matteo at freegeek.org> wrote: On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 11:11:18AM -0700, Shawn Campbell said:
> Have any of the other FG's dealt with a contractor / "recycler" known as 5r processors Ltd.? They have two of them here in TN and that was one of the contractors that we were planning to work with and still may. 
> 
> Here is part of the problem...
> 
> When I was talking to one of the purchasing agents about what we are trying to do and why, we were on the same common ground. Then she said it sounds like we might be a competitor, and I explained to her that not only were we trying to keep ewaste out of the landfills, but to also reuse the technology. She was fine with that, and then went on to say that she serves on the TN board of solid waste, and that they were going to put 5 containers in our county for ewaste once some new laws go into effect next year. 
> I said great, but what are you going to do with all that equipment? 
> 
> She said that they are an end of life processor and their goal is to keep it out of the landfill. I asked, what about the still good functioning equipment though?

Its true that alot of the equipment is probabley still functioning. It's
also true that what is practical for reuse is a moving target. We (here
in portland) are often upping the specks on what we give away to
volunteers based on the amount of systems that we are recieving. 

> They really did seem to care about that, just as long as they were keeping the environment clean and get paid.

My Question are they breaking down the materials or do they send there
products to places like china. (there websight may say this but im not
sure.) 

> I guess some people just don't get it...

I beleave that even thow we do all this great recycling work, the most
inportant thing we do is get people comfortable with computers. 

> I hope that we can still find a way to do business with them as they will buy our plastics, wire, processors, circuit boards, etc. and hopefully still leave us an avenue to even run a business. I mean there is enough room for us both, now it is just time to hunker down and show the public why they need to recycle their equipment with us.
> 
> (end venting) and the update...

It's great to be getting all the questions, and updates.

Matteo

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