As I have been working on the issue of e-waste caused by unused mobile phones, I started to look at different unused electronics and different prototypes of reusing the “E-waste”.
Zero Dollar Laptop project started running workshops in London since January 2010 with clients of St Mungo’s charity for homeless people. This project aims to change the way people think about technology. They started with recycling hardware, breaking Windows and installing Free and Open Source Software to build media laptops and create music, graphics and video for distribution over the Internet. All the participants will leave the project with street-smart technical knowledge and a wireless enabled media laptop. As it says on their website, “The Zero Dollar Laptop project is a recycled computer, running Free Open Source Software (FOSS) that is fast and effective – now and long into the future. ”
Furthermore, this project is also a programme of public debates, exhibitions and workshops about art, technology and environment inspired by the Zero Dollar Laptop Manifesto. As it says in their blog, “The zero dollar laptop is not intended simply for multimedia entertainment. Though it can be an educational playground, it can also be a genuinely useful production platform. The zero dollar laptop allows kids to learn and adults to produce. (Only when people are able to use computers to produce their own data does information communication technology become genuinely empowering.)”.
“The emergence of the zero dollar laptop as a key computing platform for empowering individuals, stimulating creativity, overcoming poverty and enriching our shared culture is entirely feasible without any additional research, design, or manufacture.”
Regarding to the solutions of reusing electronics and challenging / solving other social and environmental issues, the zero dollar laptop is a good example of decentralised solutions that is more robust, more responsive to local circumstances, greener, more flexible, and they encourage local skill development and independence.
For more details, please have a look their website: http://www.furtherfield.org/zerodollarlaptop/
What I was inspired from this project is their approaches of solving an environmental issue and at the same time building a social benefits. ”From consumer techno-bling to customised tools-for-the-job, people develop and share tools and skills, create rich content, and become smart, connected and active citizens, who create, reclaim and shape culture on our own terms. ”
This case study demonstrates the possibility of finding a social and beneficial use for an unused / second hand laptops by indicating the three following stages:
1. Making the public become aware of the issue of e-waste caused by laptops.
2. Solving the issue of e-waste from laptops by creating new social ways in which the old laptops can be used.
3. Generating collective and sharable network of creative skills and experiences for the homeless.
- Posted in Communities + Participation, Technology, Workshop
- 1 Comment
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![07[1]](http://www.designandenvironment.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/071.jpg "07[1]")
One Comment
St.Mungo’s!! :)