Librecycle
Librecycle is a Richmond, VA start-up focused on developing novel solutions for electronics waste.
Our goal is to develop cost-effective, carbon neutral technologies that profitably create science and engineering products from e-waste streams.
Thanks so much for your support Richmond!
Fundraising has definite picked up! Please keep it up so we can provide the Richmond community expanded Covid 19 testing as soon as possible.
We need 100k at minimum to start. Please message everyone you know this critical infrastructures! đ¸
More info here:
https://www.facebook.com/621882561200748/posts/2713367505385566/?vh=e&d=n
Child miners living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car Dorsen, just eight, is one of 40,000 children working daily in the mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The terrible price they will pay for our clean air is ruined health and a likely early death.
There. Is. A. Better. Way.
The Price of Recycling Old Laptops: Toxic Fumes in Thailandâs Lungs The e-waste industry is booming in Southeast Asia, frightening residents worried for their health. Despite a ban on imports, Thailand is a center of the business.
First US steel plants powered by wind, solar energy are coming for industry with big carbon footprint A Nucor steel plant in Missouri will be the first in the U.S. powered by wind energy, while an old steel facility in Colorado is transitioning to solar from Xcel Energy. These renewable-energy sources for recycled steel will make a dent in steel's carbon footprint. The industry contributes as much a...
What Can We Do About the Growing E-waste Problem? In 2016, the world discarded 49 million tons of electronic waste, yet only 20 percent of it was recycled. Where does e-waste go? And how are we going to deal the growing amounts of it?
Our goal is to do it right, 100% of the time. And we will.
The dark side of electronic waste recycling An undercover tracking program is revealing the toll of the e-waste trade.
5 full boxes of cellphones about to begin the recycling process. These boxes do not include the modern smartphones previously removed for repurposing. The smartphones would fill another large box.
This is only scratching the surface...
The World Has an E-Waste Problem Less than a quarter of all U.S. electronic waste is recycled
We canât send plastic to China anymore. What happens to our recyclables now? Some cities have stopped recycling, but others are testing new programs.
The state of recycling in Virginia: It may not be going where you think Costs are going up, and cities are making decisions about the future of recycling: "It's going to get worse before it gets better."
âWe did the world a disservice by not doing our due diligence and saying itâs worth paying American citizens to do the work and keep the jobs and the recycling infrastructure solid at home,â Sanborn said.
How Fossil Fuel Companies Are Killing Plastic Recycling Plastic trash has overwhelmed America. Fossil fuel companies are about to make it worse.
Can laboratories move away from single-use plastic? Finding alternatives to single-use plastic wonât be easy for scientists, but here are some of the ways that they are starting to change their habits
Interested in working toward the cause? Come join us!
What to do about plastics? Maybe regional recycling infrastructure is the answer...
An MIT researcher says we should trash all our recyclable plastic, and he's probably right MIT researcher Andrew McAfee says we shouldn't be wasting time recycling plastic and instead focus on better regulation and nuclear power.
US top of the garbage pile in global waste crisis The US is the world's top producer of waste per head of population, and one of the worst at recycling.
We know the wrong way to deal with e-waste. But what should we do instead? | Ensia A handful of firms around the world are working to develop environmentally responsible e-waste recycling and disposal strategies. Hereâs what they have to teach the rest of us.
Plastic-eating bacteria: the scientists improving our recycling The team that accidentally created a plastic-eating enzyme pushes to make it more efficient.
And we're offering solutions.
The World Has an E-Waste Problem Less than a quarter of all U.S. electronic waste is recycled
Since Chinaâs Ban, Recycling in the US Has Gone Up in Flames All that neatly sorted plastic, paper, and glass used to go to China. Now a lot of it is just getting burned instead.
How technology is distributed directly ties to it's effectiveness, like how the automotive industry invested in and killed mass transit in the US. Should and shall we trust Shell and other actors of climate change to deliver a clean energy future?
There are better options:
https://www.facebook.com/donate/2320154344888128/?fundraiser_source=external_url
Global Oil Plows Billions Into Solar & Energy Storage Global oil companies are plowing billions of dollars per year into solar and into energy storage, as more nations seek to switch their energy sources away from fossil fuels.
This practice is unacceptable when we have technology to address the excess. Investing in clean technologies is the best way forward and the time is now.
Support our work in this area here:
https://www.facebook.com/donate/2320154344888128/1956222237766767/
'Moment of reckoning': US cities burn recyclables after China bans imports Residents of cities like Chester, outside Philadelphia, fear a rise in pollution from incinerators after Chinaâs recycling ban
Investing in clean technologies could be one of the best moves today. Will we make the right decision?
The False Choice Between Economic Growth and Combatting Climate Change Decades ago, the economist William Nordhaus demonstrated how a âspaceship economyâ could thrive if governments made sure that companies paid a price for the environmental damage they caused.
Changing industry doesn't end with the products produced, it extends to the social means.
Worker Cooperatives Are More Productive Than Normal Companies When maximizing profits isnât the only goal, companies can actually work better.
Not just plastics, a circular economy is essential for most materials in a sustainable future.
The winner of Statistic of the Year: 90.5 percent of plastic is not recycled The Royal Statistical Society chose 90.5 percent â the amount of plastic waste that has never been recycled â as international statistic of the year.
Fighting climate change begins with changing business as usual.
Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change
We wonât save the Earth with a better kind of disposable coffee cup | George Monbiot We must challenge the corporations that urge us to live in a throwaway society rather than seeking âgreenerâ ways of maintaining the status quo, says George Monbiot
The US is now facing a crisis as recycling materials build up. E-waste is not exempt from this shift, and we need solutions to this problem, now.
Will you help us create those solutions?
Chinaâs notorious e-waste dumping ground cleaner but poorer Thousands of polluting recyclers have shut down in Guiyu, Guangdong, while others have moved into tightly controlled industrial park
Why are companies like Librecycle! necessary? Because we need solutions to global poverty and pollution together, not individually. Help us make a sustainable world, together.
FRONTLINE/World Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground | PBS As this month's digital television conversion makes tens of millions of analog TV's obsolete, and Americans continue to trash old computers and cell phones at alarming rates, FRONTLINE/World presents a global investigation into the dirty secret of the digital age -- the dumping of hundreds of millio...
The conversation with recycling should begin with responsible industries. Rethinking production while focusing on reusability should be central to our considerations. The responsibility here is not necessarily on the consumer.
Why putting the wrong items in recycling bins is an expensive problem The head of the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority, Kim Hynes, said it's actually causing the recycling industry to struggle.
Announcing Librecycle!
Well folks, when life gives you a backyard, non-profit laboratory; I suppose youâve got to make something out of it! This project has been in my mind at various stages since I lived in Madison, WI in 2013. At the time, I was aware of the hazardous practices used for e-waste recycling overseas, and decided I wanted to find a domestic solution to improve the human and environmental costs of recycling these materials. But how could I do that?
Well, the materials are recycled in most places with the intent of extracting metals, some of which fall within the precious metal category. For the average person to extract significant amounts of value from such waste streams, a large volume of recycling would be necessary. But what if we concentrated on the end product from the waste, rather than only looking at the raw material value? And what if we direct what we get out of the process toward objectively good things, like curing disease and expanding access to quality STEM education?
Enter Librecycle! The concept is simple: identify marketable products that can be produced through the fewest and cheapest possible extraction and synthesis steps. Since we believe in responsible corporate behavior, weâre also throwing in an additional requirement: that the processes be sustainable and applicable across a range of bioregions, globally.
It sure is a challenge, but a sustainable future means taking on these problems, not kicking the can down the road for the next generation. This is only one piece of a much greater puzzle, but getting this right, now, will allow others to start falling into place.