Hackerspace as E-waste recycling facility

The idea

After I went to the opening party of H.A.C.K. in Budapest I promised myself to make a Hackerspace in Bucharest and thinking about how to pull this I had a crazy idea what about a hybrid a hackerspace and a electronics waste recycling facility in the same place!

It will definitely NOT look like this but the illustration should make you think about a mad max .. scrapyard of awesomeness with possibly solar panels, wind mills and geeky stuff :P

The info

But before to hear it let's clarify the term hackerspace for new comers "A hackerspace or hackspace (from Hacker and Space, sometimes referred to as a makerspace) is a real (as opposed to virtual) place where people with common interests, usually in science, technology, or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and collaborate." according to Wikipedia.

Contrary to what some might think it has o illegal dark side, I have to underline that while software hackers might do their job on others people work and thats illegal, hardware hackers will do their job on re-purposing and hacking hardware that they own and that legal. Imagine finding a hardware hacker trying to hack your toaster when you go into your kitchen, Ha, Not going to happen right?

Now about E-waste : Rapid technology change, low initial cost, and planned obsolescence have resulted in a fast-growing surplus of electronic waste around the globe. So it's a problem for the environment and difficult to tackle by developing countries or advanced ones as well.

More information about e-waste recycling on http://ewasteguide.info . From here we learnt that to get rid of e-waste there are some low tech methods like Incineration, Open burning, Landfilling that have their disadvantages and seem rather unfit for our modern age. But there are also some more advanced methods of dealing with e-waste like Detoxication, Shredding and Refining.

Detoxication The first step in the recycling process is the removal of critical components from the e-waste in order to avoid dilution of and / or contamination with toxic substances during the downstream processes. Critical components include, e.g., lead glass from CRT screens, CFC gases from refrigerators, light bulbs and batteries.

Shredding - Mechanical processing is the next step in e-waste treatment, normally an industrial large scale operation to obtain concentrates of recyclable materials in a dedicated fraction and also to further separate hazardous materials. Typical components of a mechanical processing plant are crushing units, shredders, magnetic- and eddy-current- and air-separators. The gas emissions are filtered and effluents are treated to minimize environmental impact.

Refining - The third step of e-waste recycling is refining. Refining of resources in e-waste is possible and the technical solutions exist to get back raw with minimal environmental impact. Most of the fractions need to be refined or conditioned in order to be sold as secondary raw materials or to be disposed of in a final disposal site, respectively. During the refining process, to three flows of materials is paid attention: Metals, plastics and glass.

The plan

A hackerspace needs two things : an engine - people and fuel - electronic parts and tools. We have a few techies around here and if we would have a meeting place I am sure more will follow. Sure everyone will come with gizmos and tools but it would be nice to have unlimited supplies so we can hack, build, improve, redesign no? Here come the e-waste facility in action, why not build a collecting center for old/useless electronics that will recycle them sell back to the industry what we cannot use and keep the goodies for ourselves. So with this we can achieve to tasks in one step : get used parts for experimenting and some profit from whats not usable.

We will need to buy/rent a place somewhere around Bucharest that will have public transportation available and enough space to accommodate some large tools that will do the recycling tasks and separate some rooms for the hackerspace.

The action

I will start gathering "minions" and go see some places and their prices to do this madness because it's just too awesome not to do it!

Please if you live in Romania let's get together and make this happen, if you live abroad and have info that can help us post it here. Join the movement! Lets build us a hackerspace!