- Student , Campus
- 23/03/2018
Old phone? Throw it in the e-waste games arcade
It takes more than talk to put sustainability into practice. Siddarth Uppili Raghavan, student of Sustainable Innovation and a member of the GO Green Office, is keen to get students and staff at TU/e actively involved, taking part in the recycling effort. But that is easier said than done. Even with the help of a contest with Dutch games like 'Gooi Je Zooi', 'Raak ze Vaak' and 'Race ‘m Rond'.
To draw attention to two problems involved in the growing use of ICT devices, the GO Green Office has dreamt up a fun campaign. “The amount of electronic waste is ever increasing and greater awareness of the circular economy is needed,” says Siddarth Uppili Raghavan. “Electronic waste has been the fastest growing stream in recent years, with 83,000 metric tonnes of electronic waste in 2009 rising to 110,000 metric tonnes in 2016 in the Netherlands alone. At the GO Green Office, we recognize the growing dependence of the university on ICT devices amongst students and staff.”
He is particularly worried by the lack of disposal opportunities available to students. “There is little opportunity for them to participate in e-waste recycling. TU/e is the place where they spend most of their time, not only studying but going to the sports center or enjoying the evening drinks parties.”
To offer students a place where they can dispose of their e -waste, Raghavan and architecure student Josien de Koning got in touch with the company E-waste Arcades, whose business is the reuse of raw materials. They were able to make use of their revamped washing machine. It has been adapted to accept old telephones instead of coins, and in exchange the user gets to play one of six games.
Attached
However nice an idea this may be, the enthusiasm to play the games isn't yet that great. The games arcade has swallowed up fewer than ten telephones and has already stood on the sixth floor of Flux, Laplace and Traverse. It is currently sited in Vertigo at CHEOPS and will later be moved to MetaForum and Auditorium.
Raghavan thinks that students are emotionally attached to their old phones, which take up only a small amount of space in the corner of a drawer. But he is hopeful and thinks that the new scheme simply needs to become more well known, and then students will start asking their family members and friends for their old cell phones.
“We hope to collect more than a hundred cell phones. They will be sent to a specialist recyling company.” He says that the arcade is the first step towards a permanent e-waste collection point on the campus. “So that full-time employees and students can easily dump their electronic waste.”
To find out which study association will win the competition, you'll have to wait until after April 27th. The key criteria is the number of telephones per association member. Whoever brings in the most cell phones will win cold beer; Raghavan and De Koning suspect that's the right kind of prize for students. There are also individual prizes for the people who get the highest game scores. They win a sustainability-themed goodie bag.
Discussion