Restart @school session 9: Exploring the value of gadgets for reuse and recycling
Before launching into an “urban mining” session on raw materials and recycling, we emphasised that reuse always comes before recycling. Then we “mined” with students working to identify the elements and minerals in the parts.
Restart @school session 6: Mobiles, lithium batteries and critical raw materials
Mobiles help us talk about miniaturisation – and material consequences. We delved into the topic of “critical raw materials”, learning about recycling rates, and need to slow our consumption. Then we changed mobile batteries
Corporate “utopias” vs. messy, human realities
While Apple’s recycling robot represents an important recognition of the need to “close the loop” it is also a mascot for an unreal future still based on mindless buying and discarding with little regard for people and planet
Tracing minerals and using our electronics ethically
Our mission is not just fixing, but connecting the dots between the way we use (and discard!) electronics, and the way they are produced. It is understanding – and intervening to reduce – their social and environmental impacts.