A new week begins in trade2save’s new office! We start this chilly Monday with exciting news announced from recycling website “letsrecycle.com” regarding the global fight against ewaste crimes. As a major step forward in this battle, Interpol has begun international action to face illegal e waste exportation/dumping. While this new initiative involves many countries’ agencies and commitments, the UK’s Environmental Agency (EA) will be in charge of the operation.

Chairman of the EA, Chris Smith, already has quite a track record in the fight against e-waste, as the EA is currently involved in 8 investigations regarding illegal e waste exporters and has made 12 arrests, making him a more than qualified leader for this international effort.At the moment the new Interpol e waste force will focus on countries already subject to much dumping such as Ghana, Nigeria, China, etc.  in order to prevent further illegal waste.

This is great news, and trade2save is excited to hear that this major international problem is getting an appropriate major international response. Trade2save has faith in the EA to lead this new task force as it’s previous endeavors have received recognition and praise even from out own Environmental Protection Agency (which is also to be included in the Interpol force). Hopefully with more investigation, pressure, and legal action, e waste criminals will punished for their hazardous, toxic crimes against the environment and humanity.

While this may seem like our daily plug, trade2save encourages our readers not to wait idly for government agencies to fight our battles for us! Make sure you do you part and recycle your ewaste at reputable recyclers (do your research and pay the fee!) Furthermore, if your electronics are still usable, give them to somebody who can use them or sell them! By lowering electronic product demand we can all do our part in this e waste fight by lowering the amount of waste produced. While we clean up our wasteful habits, Interpol can clean up the criminals who take advantage of our old gadgets.

Happy Friday from trade2save!

It has been a chaotic but rewarding week as our new office is pretty much up and running albeit a few tweaks to be made here and there. Furthermore, with the rampant spreading of flu, colds, and general sickness our staff has taken it’s fair share of casualties so make sure all you out there are taking your vitamins and getting your 8 hours of sleep!

Reported last night, news website examiner.com posted a great article summarizing our nation’s major e waste issues, referencing great back links to our current national (or lack of) policy, state’s attempts to enforce local legislation, and even frontline video reports, a must see. Focusing specifically on the Bay Area and San Francisco, the author continues to follow through where most consumers stop caring (out of sight out of mind), calling out recycling companies’ shady exportation of electronic waste.

Trade2save is happy to see that bigger name news companies such as the examiner are directing their focus on e waste. This is a great summary article that highlights the e waste issue quickly and to the point but lacks further depth. We believe this is still not enough coverage but at least is a start that is approachable by most average readers. The article does do a good job of emphasizing the need to start focusing on creating electronics that are easier to reuse, refurbish and recycle. Naturally trade2save is with this argument for extended life span as with longer use comes less waste. Regardless of future products, just make sure to think twice this holiday season before you buy that new 24″ monitor to replace your 19″. Enjoy the weekend!!

Following our own nation’s (The USA, for our international readers) first signs of progress in implementing a national policy towards e waste (see previous article),  Australia has decided to up the ante and fully pass e waste legislation to be implemented! Way to go Australia!Just announced today by gmagazine.com.au, the Australian environmental ministers have proposed a new recycling program focusing on old computers and televisions. Much like the US and other developed nations, Australia shared an abysmal track record of e waste production with little to no recycling facilities or policies, leaving much to be tossed or exported. In 2007-2008 alone only 1 out of 10 tossed computers/televisions was recycled in Australia, a country that produced almost 44 million tonnes the year before.However with this new policy, planned for 2011, Australia’s goal is to have up to 80% of all scrapped televisions/computers by 2021.While this may seem a long way off, just the fact that such progress is being made to slow the e-waste tide is already a fantastic start.  We here at trade2save applaud the Australian government to take responsibility and step in to face a problem before it get’s completely out of control. Consumers can rejoice as e waste drop offs are planned to be free of charge, with government and manufacturers taking the costs. In the mean time manufacturers plan to implement higher costs in better quality, longer lived electronics, emphasizing refurbishing and reselling. Hopefully we too in the states will see our current e-waste bill be passed, leading to such ambitious e waste policies. Until then, keep buying/selling/trading nt!

Recently reported by Ars Technica, the lack of a national e waste policy within the USA may finally come to an end with the proposal of e-waste legislation now going through congress.

The bill is known as “The Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act,” or, “S.1397” and awaits consideration from US Senate. The bill outlines our rapidly growing problem of electronic production and e waste growth, along with the lack of public knowledge regarding the issue. The bill appears to focus on funding for research on  the safest, most efficient way to recycle current e-waste and how to curb the future production of more.

Trade2save is ecstatic at the news of a potential national e waste policy. As one of the largest consumer/producer bases of electronic gadgets, the U.S is embarrassingly behind in e-waste management, lacking a national policy or the ratification of the “Basel Convention,” a regulatory measure to combat the exportation of hazardous waste (including e waste) to other countries. Most pertinent to trade2save’s goal and business, the bill states a goal to get electronic producers/consumers to”reconsider product design and assembly to facilitate and improve refurbishment, reuse, and recycling.”

While we here at trade2save of course are behind this 100%, the bill still has a long way to go before it’s actually passed. Furthermore, the bill only allocates money to researching e-waste problems and has yet to directly control companies’ and consumers’ e-waste practices. Hopefully with the passing of this bill, our government will open the door to more r&d on e-waste, increase public awareness, and begin creating actual legislation for consumer action. One way or another, the consumer can, regardless of any bill, demand more  green products, recycle and resell old electronics, and buy pre-owned, so to all our readers, never forget your own power!

Happy humpday from trade2save!

Please forgive the absence of activity the past few days as trade2save has officially moved into a new office! Trade2save apologizes if we’ve been difficult to reach but our computers are set up, our power and internet is good to go, our inventory stocked, and of course our fridge plugged in and filled (most important!)

The past two days have been chaotic but our readers can be assured that things shall carry on as normal, albeit from a bigger, better location! For the time being we shall leave you all with warm thanks for the support you’ve given us so far that has encouraged trade2save’s expansion as we continue to unload our pre owned treasure chest

-the trade2save team