Hi everybody! First of all I’d like to thank Samantha & Umberto for the brilliant presentation they gave last Friday. It was really inspiring, with a perfect balance of technical details, data, images, humour and videos. The audience was also great and showed great interest taking notes ( also for their next test!) & asking intelligent questions.
Here’s the firs video shown during the morning, to celebrate the recycling of over a million tonnes of electrical waste from across Europe. This has saved enough energy to power a million and a half homes for a year and kept mountains of valuable material from landfill. Next time one of your gadgets breaks, don’t bin it — recycle it. The gold in your old mobile phone could end up as jewellery or in a new phone.
The second one is about what happens to Jess’s broken hair straighteners when she takes them to her local recycling centre. How elecronic waste is recycled.
And what happens to batteries? Ever wonder what happens to a battery when you recycle it? This kid will tell you 😉
The following animation shows how waste electronics can be recycled and what they may become.
This video shows in a more technical way the whole process. I know some students asked for in-depth images.
Among the several campaigns carried out all around Europe to raise awareness among children, teenagers & young people you can here see the video created by a Portuguese primary school. Unfortunately they couldn’t show it during the Talk because the Liceo Internet connection was too slow 🙁 and that was the only video they hadn’t loaded onto their pc. Watch it now, it was done by kids! Creativity at its best!
The second is about JUNK KOUTURE Recycled Fashion Competition Grand Final in Ireland that shows what stunning clothes were designed, created and manufactured from waste by Secondary School Students. Junk Kouture 2013 in association with the European Recycling Platform (ERP) gives young, expressive designers the opportunity to work with various junk materials with a view to creating a striking dress design and an impressive work of art. The winner was Lady Data. Guess what the others were made of!
The third is about one of the Recycling parties in London, 10/11/10. DJs Rob Da Bank and Jackmaster rocked the crowd while Man Like Me and James Yuill played live on stage. Entrance was free with an item of small electrical waste for recycling.
In order to enforce the answer given to the girl who asked the speakers’ opinion on the illegal smuggling of electrical waste to countries like Africa, I want to end this video roundup by publishing a video that I hope will make you think twice before dumping in the bid an old electric appliance. Please keep in mind that all this only happens when electrical waste is handled illegally. And that is exactly what the European Commission wanted to stop by implementing the WEEE European directive.
The end of the line: e-waste in Ghana. Every year, tons of used electronics from North America, Europe and other industrialized parts of the world end up in countries like Ghana. This is where televisions, computer monitors and VCRs smuggled illegally come to die. Largely the business of boys and young men, electronics are torn apart, their plastic shells discarded or used as stools or buckets. The guts of computers hold copper, aluminum and other metals that can be sold for money. A kilogram of copper sells for about $4 – over half of Ghanaians live on less than $2 a day.
Electrical wires and cables are some the main components holding the precious copper. To separate the metal from its plastic or rubber enclosure, fire is the fastest solution. Boys set ablaze the plastic casings of computers, sometimes throw in Styrofoam from old refrigerators to increase the intensity of the flames. They then throw in the wires or other components to burn off the plastic. The fire spews a thick, black smoke, releasing not only toxic fumes but chemicals that seep into the ground, meters away from the basic homes of Agbogboloshie, one of Accras poorest neighbour-hoods.
According to a Greenpeace study, some of the chemicals released during the burning process can affect childrens developing reproductive systems, brain development and the nervous system. Ground samples collected from the area were found to contain toxic metals, such as lead, in quantities exceeding one hundred times background levels. Other chemicals such as phthalates – some of which are known to interfere with sexual reproduction – and chlorinated dioxins – known to promote cancer were also found in some of the samples.
You can help stop all this!!
Finally, Here’s the link to the TELESTRATION – a telestrator is a device that allows its operator to draw a freehand sketch over a motion picture image – VIDEO SUMMARY OF ALL CONTENT DEALT WITH IN THE TALK. Enjoy it!
Last but not least, I’m adding here a few photos of the audience I took although I was so engrossed in listening -& checking sound & lights – that I forgot about doing that!
Thanks for your attention & remember that with a small action you can contribute to a sustainable future, guaranteeing good quality of life and a more efficient use of our planet’s resources 🙂
If you want to leave a comment or a message to Umberto Raiteri & Samantha Charalambous feel free to do it & they’ll be very pleased to read it.
Laura Cimetta
Dear all,
thank you very much for your words of appreciation. It is always very important for us to receive participants’ constructive feedback, and yours was such. It was a pleasure to meet a respectful and interested audience, furthermore asking very stimulating questions!
Please disseminate our environmentally healthy recycling tips and feel free to contact us for further questions or, why not, ideas!!!
Take care and happy recycling 🙂
Samantha
Umberto and Samantha in this conference I have learnt some useful things that would help me to recycle.
I want to thank you to come here in Pordenone to speak us although it isn’t a big city.
The thing that i was more surprised to listen was that if I want to buy a new mobile phone I can bring them my old one.
For me this was new and think that it can be useful in my life.
I would like thank you for different reasons. At first because you had accepted and had decided to came to our school. Then because you had made the conference very interesting and involving thanks also the support of power point presentation and the use of a clear and suitable language. Moreover you explained the importance of recyncling and I have learned a lot of things that before had been unknown to me. I found this type of conference very important because they try to change the mentality of people in order to preserve the Earth.
I would like to thank you because I know you went to our school without being paid and I appreciated a lot this because I think it’s very good to raise awareness young to such an important theme that’s recycling.
I would also thank you because the presentation wasn’t boring because of the use of the videos and that i learnt a lot of new words in English i didn’t know and I also discovered what you do.
i really liked the ERP 2010 ranking because it made me understand how much Italy has to improve in recycling and how much energy and less pollution we could have recycling.
I discovered also that E-Waste could be very dangerous for our health and so it’s very important to stop the illegal smuggling to Third-World countries.
I hope that these conferences in the schools will help a lot here in Italy, we really needed these informations, ’cause for me, we don’t recycle and hand our waste properly, not because we don’t care, but because we don’t know. I really appreciated the event in the auditorium, it brings awareness and knowledge to us, the next generation consumers (users sounds better). The conference was really important and interesting and, for me, it will change the behaviour with the WEEE of our generation, in the future…. If someone knows where his waste will end, I’m sure he won’t choose the bad choice. Thank you for the free conference!
Hello to everybody! After this conference and the lessons in class I have become more aware and more inform about the waste in general especially the e-waste and how you can dispose of and handle correctly. The conference was very involving and interesting . I think that the message of recycling has to be developed to more people and above all to the young people, to the kids that are the future and they are more inclined to the change. I really appreciate the videos of the two teenager that shows the easiness of recycling a WEEE. At last I’m please and thanks to the ERP for the wonderful presentation.
Thanks a lot for this great opportunity , I think that the job activity you do is really a wonderful things.
Because it’s really important to raise awareness of people and starting from school, from young people, is really important because we are the future generation and so we are responsable for our planet, we have to do something and we have to learn how to teach also the new generation and probably in a next future our sons, so thanks for this oppotunity.
I found your presentation very interesting,even if was developed in a really specific area, you made it understandable. The two hours of presentation were not boring at all, and all the videos helped the audience to get more involved.I never had problems with e-waste I didn’t even make questions to anyone about this big problem. My awareness definitely grow, I don’t want to live in a landfill world, polluted by toxic chemicals. ERP is a great group and I hope that the two thousands members of 2012 will grow in the next future.
One of the things about ERP that I appriciate most was the agenda of all the events that you organized to raise the awareness of people and make them know that you exist.
I want to thank you for your availability you gave me to listen to your interesting conference.
I would like to say some few good points of the presentation.
First of all that it was an English conference that is always useful to learn and improve my English.
the second point I want to say, is that you made a conference with both a technical way but at the same time with examples and in a interesting way, without being boring.
It’s a perfect mixture to do a good conference especially when there are important topics like this to increase the awareness and self knowledge.
Thank you again to have given me the opportunity to participate to your conference!
Dear Umberto and Samantha,
your conference was really nice and involving. I didn’t know all this things that you said to us because this kind of issue isn’t really known. This is wrong. We are the new generation and we have to support and look after our planet and his health. Now I hope that everybody recycling in the correct way because it’s really sad that the third world have to work in the leand fill only because we don’t want to listen your directive about E-Waste.
Thank you!
In my opinion you were very nice cause you talked about this important thing making people who were listening to you involved, also using some videos and a computer presentation.
I hope that the conference raised awarness lot of young guys, because how you have told us during the conference, we are the new generation and we must take care of our planet by all the way.
I would like to meet you again in the future and hear that Italy is one of the most virtouous countries about recycling, so I think a lot of person will be glad to you and your company for what you have done.
I always support the ecology and a way of life that respects our planet. My parents, the school and the city where I live are very sensitive to the problem of ecology and taught me how it is important to protect our planet. The meeting last week was very interesting and I liked it because I felt so much application and passion in the words of the speakers. I’m glad that more and more people are interested in the problems of pollution and work to resolve them. I am convinced that recycle materials and waste is one of many steps that every person must make for our planet. I am proud that the City where I lived adopted separate waste collection and today we recycle over 90% of our waste. I’d like to participate in other conferences on the subject in order to understand how and what men can do to protect the environment. Thank you again for the opportunity and congratulations to the speakers.
I have to thank you. I already knew something about recycling but not so much. I was surprised by how many events ERP promotes to encourage a proper handling of WEEE. They are interesting and sure they help because are different ways to raise awareness, starting from schools. Yes, because we, students, are the future. Now we are used to technology, we couldn’t stay without it, but we have also to care about our planet, because it’s only one and it’s wonderful. I loved the first video that introduced ERP and what it does, there were marvelous images. I think we all could see how much you care about your job, it was very involving and I learned also new words. Thank you!
Dear Umberto and Samantha,
I think that the conference was really interesting. Before that and the lessons that we did in class, I didn’t know where e-waste finished. Now I know that.
I really like the first video where I think that you take immediately the attenction of the audience, showing us how much is beautiful and important our planet.
With the presentation after this video we understood how much recycling is important, but speccially how much is EASY to do!
Thank you!
I found very interesting the message that you try to give us. I agree with you to make a more green world and to finish to export our waste. I understand that recycling reduce pollution and helps our planet. You had me thinking to a green world where all is recycled, we haven’t waste and landfill, no incinerators, no export and we can preserve all our resources. I think that everybody should see this possibility and everyone should start to work together, we can make it possible. Now I now that. Thanks.
Hi speakers, your conference was really interesting: it was clear, easy to follow, fun in some parts and really full of information. I liked the fact that you said not too many technical data, but you chose the right average of description of disposable methods and data about recycling, smuggling, quantity of materials… I liked very much the first video you showed, about the reaching of a million tons of e-waste recycled: it showed in a clear and direct way that the Earth is wonderful, but that we have to protect it. We have put it in danger, and now we have to admit our mistakes and try to do better. Unfortunatelly, many countries don’t think so.
I hope that these conferences in the schools will help a lot here in Italy, we really needed this informations, cause for me, we don’t recycle and hand our waste properly not because we don’t care nor we’re lazy, but because we don’t know. I really appreciated the event in the auditorium, it brings awareness and knowledge to us, the next-generation consumers (“users” sounds better). The conference was really important and interesting and, for me, it will change the behavior with the WEEE of our generation, in the future….. If someone knows where his waste end, I’m sure he won’t choose the bad choice. Thank you very much for this conference!
I’m really grateful for what you are doing, I’m not just talking ’bout the conference, I’m talking about your job. I really admire persons like you that make with their work the world a better place, also creating workplaces. I’m sure that this is the right way to start, the new real buisness is the green one. I’m convincted that your doings will help my generation and the succeeding ones to live in an unpolluted world.
Dear Umberto and Samantha,
I think that you gave us a wonderful presentation. The theme is perfect for us because we young people are the future and so we must to start recycling. The presentation wasn’t boring because there was a lot of videos and slides. I think any student who has followed the conference he changed his interest and knowledge about recycling, reusing and reducing.
So thank you for your excellent presentation!
Hi, I’d like to say some things that I think are important.
First of all thank you for the talk, it was very interesting and it wasn’t difficult to understand. This lesson helped me to know things that I didn’t know about WEEE. I recycle almost all the things that I don’t use or are broken since I was a kid but hearing that speach I felt surprised by all the WEEE that isn’t recycled and by the life that have people who try to gain money saving the possible from all that we smuggled illegally.
Maybe it is impossible that all people recycle everything but I hope that in the future we will recycle almost all to save the wonderful planet were we live.
I must thank you, Umberto and Samantha, because you helped me in understanding what’s “E-Waste recycling”, I’ve never thought too much about this topic. I started recycling during my childhood so I don’t remember myself not recycling, now it’s something natural and I’m angry with lazy not-recycling people; everyone can learn how to recycle, it isn’t impossible. I must thank you also for your great English, I understood what you’d said and I learnt lots of new words. You are very communicative and you must go on in making people aware of WEEE recycling. Finally, I’ll prefer if you talk also about the chemicals reactions in recycling, only in scientific schools obviously.