Today I got to combine a couple of my interests: cargo cycling and e-waste recycling. Almost five years ago I helped found Richmond, Indiana’s Hardware Co-op. The Hardware Co-op is a re-use and recycling program for e-waste. The project has operated at a fairly small scale until the last year, when we’ve been attracting more donors and volunteers. Today the project had our first event presence– a booth at the local Earth Day celebration.
Our booth consisted of a thin-client demo lab, which showed how some systems from the Windows-98 era can be made to perform at modern speeds. It works by sending most processing to a server, like the old mainframe systems with “dumb terminals”.
Using the Bikes-at-Work trailer seen the background of the photo above, I carried over 3 desktop systems, a laptop, a 32 inch display and some other supplies. While our booth was effectively two blocks from a parking lot, I was able to roll the trailer through the door and right up to our booth. Had I carried the equipment by car, several trips back and forth to the car would have been required to get all the equipment inside.
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