Making a Real Green House

The phrase “Going Green” might sound intimidating to some, and it’s easy to understand why. In many cases, it is used to refer to large-scale, corporate effort to be more eco-friendly. Even so though, it can be quite easy for even a small household to go green. Considering that Malaysian households will dispose of 1.2 million tonnes of e-waste annually by 2020, we at Cycle Trends believe that it’s high time we do our part to make things better.

The first thing we have to consider is that not all our e-waste needs to, well, go to waste- 60% of a television can be recycled, 85% of your average mobile phone, and a whopping 90% of a used washing machine can be repurposed. However, we should not settle for that- after all, 60% recyclable is 40% waste. That’s a lot of money going down the drain, and worse still, pollution into the environment! Here at Cycle Trends, we are against that sort of thing, so let’s see what we can do to make things better all around.

Let’s start with the basics. The first thing we can do is to simply have separate bins for regular waste and e-waste, as e-waste has may dangerous materials that could cause havoc if placed in the same dumps as regular waste. Instead, why not take a look here and find the closest e-waste disposal site near you? .

You could also donate used e-goods to charity or schools- old computers can be a godsend to schools, especially if those computers are Internet-capable. You can even give them to lower-income families whom you know of. Anyone who can afford a computer would not buy an old, obsolete one, so there’s no use in trying to sell it, but a poorer family would gain a lot by having electronic access. Some NGOs might also take in used electronics, especially if they do a lot of overseas work in impoverished places. Indeed, things like older mobile phones might actually be more preferable, as they’re generally sturdier than most modern conveniences would be in hostile environments. .

But why go through all this trouble? Again, we start with the simplest reason- resources. Creating and maintaining electronic equipment requires the usage of hazardous materials. Recycling and reusing old electronics also consumes far less energy than making new equipment, while keeping landfill sizes down. Most importantly of all, it keeps our environment in tip-top shape for both ourselves and future generations- and that’s something we at Cycle Trends have certainly warmed up to.