Showing posts with label UVM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UVM. Show all posts

Vermont Press Release - Firsthand accounts of SECONDHAND, By Adam Minter



MEET AUTHOR ADAM MINTER IN BURLINGTON, VERMONT
November 14, 2:30PM, UVM Davis Center


On November 14 (America Recycles Day Eve), the University of Vermont Recycling staff will greet best-selling author Adam Minter at the Davis Center (590 Main Street) as he speaks about his new book SECONDHAND, Travels in the Global Garage Sale.

Minter chose Vermont as a launching point (to the surprise of his publisher, Bloomsbury Press) to thank Vermont for hosting him at the Fair Trade Recycling Summit (2013), where he met several of the fascinating people he profiles in Secondhand.

According to UVM Recycling Director Corey Berman, and Middlebury recycler Robin Ingenthron, Vermont's emphasis on reuse is something that Adam saw, firsthand, put to good use in Secondhand.

"Downsizing. Decluttering. A parent's death. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country—or even halfway across the world—to people and places who find value in what we leave behind."

Secondhand takes readers on a globetrotting journey to see how items saved or discarded, donated or sold by Americans make their way into reuse, repair or remanufacturing processes. In Vermont's example, he followed a load of computers from Middlebury to Ghana, and interviewed the "tech sector" importers who provided Ghana's information grid with affordable electronics. Minter also treks to Japan, India, Mexico, and other "reuse trade routes", and winds up with important questions about how important our stuff really is, and who should write the rules about it.

Date: Thursday, November 14, 2019
Location: Sugar Maple Ballroom – Davis Center (Address is 590 Main St.)
Time: 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm.

Presentation at MIT: Sustainability and Tinkerer Blessings

The theme of my presentation at Mass Institute of Technology (MIT) University this afternoon.

It's a class on international development strategy.

It took me back to high school.

This slide explains how I turned from philosophy to scrap recycling.




Recycling goes beyond human health, it conserves energy and resources for future generations.   The opponents of recycling have trouble coping just with the fact that kids they photographed 12 years ago are now adults working in smartphone factories in China, and understanding that Africans began throwing used televisions away 30 years ago.  This is ultimately about whether we are intelligent enough, and care enough, to do things today which affect the generations yet to be born.