National Cat Day

Black cats are always the last to go at adoption shelters – especially around Halloween. Until now.

October 29 is National Cat Day, a holiday to celebrate cats for their unconditional love and companionship, and to welcome those in need into our lives through animal rescue. Remember, however, that black cats need extra protection around Halloween. Here are a few simple tips to keep your kitty safe.

Adoption shortfalls don’t end with black cats. More cats than dogs are euthanized every year, mostly because they usually arrive at shelters without any owner identification. The Animal Miracle Network estimates that approximately 4 million cats enter shelters every year, and 1 to 2 million of them are euthanized.

The primary goal of National Cat Day is to facilitate 10,000 incremental adoptions of shelter cats nationwide on October 29. This will be the first year that the Animal Miracle Network attempts to track the numbers for cats, but similar National Dog Day initiatives in the past have exceeded the goal by more than 12,000 dogs.

National Cat Day founder Colleen Paige explains, “We put a lot of manpower into communicating with our affiliate event promoters and shelters around the country that signed up to participate. We’ll only take credit for the numbers we directly receive from our adoption sources.”

You can still help homeless cats on National Cat Day if you’re unable to take on another pet. Visit a local animal shelter and offer to volunteer by cleaning cages or playing with the cats. You could also host your own event such as a bake sale and donate the proceeds to a shelter in honor of National Cat Day.

If you’re already a proud cat owner, take some time on National Cat Day to show your pet how much you appreciate her. Paige recommends spoiling her with treats or a new litter box, or simply showing her some love. “In this difficult economy, if all you can afford is time, spend some of it with your furry feline,” recommends Paige. “That’s more important to them then all the catnip in the world.”

If you’re looking to give a homeless cat a loving home, visit our pet search tool to meet your new best friend. With pet adoption, you’ll find that National Cat Day will be the first of countless great ones to come.

via petcentric.com

Posted via web from Marco Channing

Home for Life, The Animal Sanctuary of St. Croix Valley, Inc.

Home For Life^® is a new kind of animal shelter, the long-term animal sanctuary. We provide life-time care for the special needs animal, the cat or dog that, while still able to lead a quality life, is unable to find a home due to age, chronic treatable disorder, handicap or similar reason. Once an animal comes to us, it truly has a home for life. Read more…

via homeforlife.org

Posted via web from Marco Channing

Typhoons Ketsana and Parma affect many of our microfinance entrepreneurs.

Philippines floods affect many of our microfinance entrepreneurs. Let’s give them an extra hand!

For updates on this post, check at the bottom:

October 21: Turning words into deed: I donate US$5 per comment on this post
October 22: 208 comments, US$1,040 raised in 24 hours
October 23: 400 comments, US$2,000 raised in 48 hours
October 24: 500 comments, US$2,500 raised. First new loans allocated
October 26: 587 comments, almost $3,000 raised. New loans allocated
October 27: 680 comments, almost $3,400 raised. New loans allocated

One of our entrepreneurs, Leoncia Arellano, lost her livelihood in the recent typhoons.

In the past weeks, two deadly storms struck the Philippines killing more than 700 people. The flooding disaster affected more than 7 million people. While the humanitarian efforts are in full gear trying to cope with the impact of this massive emergency, we should also keep in mind “the human face” of the storms. We should not forget what this actually means to each of the individual people affected by the typhoons, the mudslides, the excessive rainfalls.

Since we kicked off our microfinance project “Change Starts Here” a year ago on my personal blog, we made quite some microfinance loans to entrepreneurs in the Philippines. Unfortunately many of these people’s lives have been turned upside down by Typhoons Ketsana and Parma. One of them is Leoncia Arellano.

Leoncia, a mother of three, married to Benigno, lives in the island village in the town of Binangonan, Rizal province in the Philippines.

She has been very active member of ASHI, the local Kiva partner, and became the leader of their center in Binangonan. In July, she asked a loan of 45,000 pesos as additional capital for her fish pond. 29,500 pesos of her loan was used for her fish pond while the remaining amount will be spent on her secondary businesses: direct selling and tricycle (rickshaw) transportation. We have her a loan of US$25 three months ago.

Leoncia hoped to establish a strong, sound and profitable business so that she would be able to help her grandchildren with their school fees, and someday build a more durable and spacious house.

Unfortunately, this dream might not come true. Today, I received an update about Leoncia:

After the entrance of Typhoon Ondoy to the area of the Philippines which caused a big damage to a hundred thousand people, Kiva field partner ASHI visited all their members living in the place ravaged by Typhoon Ondoy. Some of them lost their houses because of flood, lost their means of living, and worst lost one or more member of their family.

If should see the situation with your own eyes… ASHI lends a helping hand in a little way like giving food which is what they really needed at this moment.

Leoncia Arellano’s family is one of those really affected by Typhoon Ondoy. Their fish pond, their main source of income, lays destroyed by the strong winds and big waves. In the past three months, Leoncia had used most of the loan in making this business more productive. Their boat, used to harvest fishes in the fish pond, is damaged by the strong current of the flood, so they don’t have anything to repair their fish pond and will surely need money to restructure the fish pond.

Their tricycle is also damaged by the flood and does not work anymore.

ASHI decided to suspend the repayment for every entrepreneur for two weeks and want to implement recovery loans so people can rebuild their lost means of living.

I left the following message for ASHI:

I am really sorry to hear how badly the people were affected by the storm.

Leoncia was one of the entrepreneurs we supported with our lenders team.

Through your update, I understand the delay in repayments, and would encourage ASHI to suspend the repayments for a longer period, and to appeal for new longer term loans so people have a chance to rebuild their livelihoods.

If there is anything we can do to help, please drop me an email via peter (at) theroadtothehorizon (dot) org, and I will be happy to help mobilizing the resources.

Thanks for this update, and thank you for caring!

Peter

October 21: To turn words into deeds:

For EVERY comment left on this blogpost, I will donate US$5 to microfinance entrepreneurs in the Philippines affected by the floods. One comment per person, deadline October 31.

If you want to give extra help, join our Kiva team and contribute directly to the Kiva projects yourself.

Update 22 Oct: 208 comments, US$1,040 raised in 24 hours

THANK YOU, everyone for your kind comments. I have to admit this initiative takes proportions I had not imagined. We are now just about 24 hours after I posted this message, and we have already 208 comments, equivalent of US$1,040.

10 new people joined our Kiva lenders team, and started allocating loans to the entrepreneurs in the Philippines directly. GREAT!

In the mean time, I have some sponsors lined up to make sure I don’t go broke on the pledge of allocating $5 per comment left on this post.

Keep on spreading the message. Keep on pointing people to this fundraising post. It is important people discover Kiva, discover what they can contribute to make this world a better place, find out that by allocating a loan to someone, they enable that person to embetter their lives THEMSELVES.

And from a purely selfish point of view, remember that Kiva loans are… LOANS. Once they are paid back, you can either re-invest or retract your funds. (which makes it a safer investment of your money than what some banks offer, if you ask me)

Keep it coming, team! Keep on spreading the message to your friends, family, colleagues via Email, Twitter, Facebook or your blog,…

May I ask one favour? If you leave a comment, also note the city and country you live in. It gives readers a good impression where the help comes from. Readers will see there are people with a good heart in all parts of the world.– Thanks.

Update 23 Oct: 400 comments, US$2,000 raised in 48 hours

The comments keep on coming. Here is an overview of the progress of our project after 48 hours:

• We just passed the 400 comments mark, which means we raised US$2,000 so far.
• Several people stepped up to the mark. My Friend E vowed to “buy” 60 comments for US$300, to help us fund this effort. Diane, one of our new Kiva lenders team proposed to assist by allocating new loans to our project. My mum also stepped up and vowed some cash to “buy some comments”. That is great, and part of the intension I had with this fundraising project: start a bit of a snowball effect so others will step up and follow.
• More than 20 new people joined our Kiva lenders team.
• The 57 members of our Kiva lenders team allocated over US$1,000 in over 30 new loans in the past 48 hours.
• I am trying to keep up with the progress on our project scorecard.

I am reading every comment you kind people leave. I can not reply or thank each of you individually, but will try to answer some of the questions that have been asked:

• Q: You donate $5 per comment left on this blogpost. Is this a hoax?
  A: Nope it is not. I will continue to report on the loans allocated. We’re running this fundraiser until Oct 31. I will start allocating loans in the next days already (as the people need funds NOW), and allocate new loans until the balance of the $-value ((comments vs. loans)) is zero.
• Q: you say you have lined up sponsors, who are they?
  A: Blogging is my main hobby, and I run a large number of blogs (check the list). On some of these blogs, I run ads, for which people pay me. Not much, but enough to refund the cost of hosting these blogs, the picture libraries etc.. When my advertisement revenue is more than my cost, I invest it in our Kiva projects. Apart from that, as I described above: some individuals also stepped up to help me fund this. The rest, I fund from my pocket..
• Q: What is your goal with this action?
  A: I am convinced that “good” rolls off. I kicked this off as a personal initiative hoping people will think about this particular natural disaster, about the people involved, pick up on the intiative and step up. While doing so, I hoped (which turned out to work) we can create some momentum to bring more “good” in the world.

Meanwhile, I am dreaming: Who knows maybe the Kiva and the microfinance community would be able to take similar actions our entrepreneurs in an area hit by a natural disaster. Very often these people live ‘on the edge’: using microfinance loans they are able to start a humble business, or invest in an existing business, but we need to continue to realize these are small business owners. If something like a flood, drought, earthquake, political turmoil and violence or in this case, a typhoon, hits them, they loose enough to put them back at ground-zero. At that point, they have the knowledge, experience and will to start all over again, but often lack the capital. And that is where we step in, the microfinance lenders..

So maybe I am just dreaming, but I wish we would institutionalize helping entrepreneurs to re-start when they are pushed over the edge.

Please keep on spreading the link to this post. Our appeal for comments runs until October 31st. Get active on forums, blog about this initiative, put it out on Twitter, Facebook and any other media you have.

Update 24 Oct: 500 comments, US$2,500 raised. First new loans allocated

We are now in the third day of our fundraiser, and received 500 comments already. Time to start allocating loans to the entrepreneurs in the Philippines. our first batch of loans is worth $300, and sponsored by a Friend.

Someone -rightfully- mentioned by Email that not only the Philippines were affected by the recent typhoons, but also Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Kiva is not active in Laos, but we will include loans to entrepreneurs in Cambodia and Vietnam in this project.

Update 26 Oct: 587 comments, almost $3,000 raised. New loans allocated

Diane, one of our Kiva Lenders’ team, stepped forward and helped me out. She already allocated 20 loans for a total of $500 for this project.
I allocated another $100 loans (20 comments “bought” by my friend Elizabeth).

A sincere thanks to both of you! This brings the total of allocated loans to $900.
Please keep on spreading the message!

Update 27 Oct: 680 comments, almost $3,400 raised. New loans allocated

Apart from fundraising, we continue to allocate new loans to entrepreneurs in the Philippines who will use the funds to revive and expand their livelihood.

Diane, one of our Kiva Lenders’ team, already allocated 25 loans for a total of $625 for this project. She committed to “buy” up to 200 comments of this post.

Elizabeth, a colleague and friend, who is also member of our Kiva team, donated $100, and as such “bought” 20 comments. Her loans are allocated in this update. In the same update, I donated $300, buying 60 comments, for 6 loans.

Our Philippines project has now allocated $1,325 already.

What is really nice to see is that more and more people start to comment this is the first time they heard about Kiva, or read or are getting involved in microfinancing. And that is exactly -apart from fundraising- what we had in mind: spread the word, mobilize people, activate their awareness of the effects and impact microfinancing has!

via haveimpact.org

http://www.haveimpact.org/philippines-floods-affect-microfinance-projects/comment-page-14/#

Posted via web from Marco Channing

Detroit: Urban Laboratory and the New American Frontier

The troubles of Detroit are well-publicized. Its economy is in free fall, people are streaming for the exits, it has the worst racial polarization and city-suburb divide in America, its government is feckless and corrupt (though I should hasten to add that new Mayor Bing seems like a basically good guy and we ought to give him a chance), and its civic boosters, even ones that are extremely knowledgeable, refuse to acknowledge the depth of the problems, instead ginning up stats and anecdotes to prove all is not so bad.

But as with Youngstown, one thing this massive failure has made possible is ability to come up with radical ideas for the city, and potentially to even implement some of them. Places like Flint and Youngstown might be attracting new ideas and moving forward, but it is big cities that inspire the big, audacious dreams. And that is Detroit. Its size, scale, and powerful brand image are attracting not just the region’s but the world’s attention. It may just be that some of the most important urban innovations in 21st century America end up coming not from Portland or New York, but places like Youngstown and, yes, Detroit.

Let’s refresh with this image showing the scale of the challenge in the city of Detroit proper:

There are zillions of pictures to illustrate the vast emptiness in Detroit. Kaid Benfield at NRDC posted these:

This phenomenon is prompted someone to coin the term “urban prairie” to capture the idea of vast tracts of formerly urbanized land returning to nature. The folks at Detroit’s best discussion site, DetroitYES, posted this before and after of the St. Cyril neighborhood. Before:

After:

A site named “Sweet Juniper” recently had a fantastic photo of the spontaneous creation of “desire line” paths across all this vacant land. You should click to enlarge this photo.

One natural response is the “shrinking cities” movement. While this has gotten traction in Youngstown and Flint, as well as in places like Germany, it is Detroit that provides the most large scale canvas on which to see this play out, as well as the place where some of the most comprehensive and radical thinking is taking place. For example, the American Institute of Architects produced a study that called for Detroit to shrink back to its urban core and a selection of urban villages, surrounded by greenbelts and banked land. Here’s a picture of their concept:

It seems likely that this will get some form of traction from officialdom, as this article suggests, though implementation is likely to be difficult.

Detroit is also attracting dreams of large scale renewal through agriculture, as Mark Dowie writes in Guernica (hat tip @archizoo).

Were I an aspiring farmer in search of fertile land to buy and plow, I would seriously consider moving to Detroit. There is open land, fertile soil, ample water, willing labor, and a desperate demand for decent food. And there is plenty of community will behind the idea of turning the capital of American industry into an agrarian paradise. In fact, of all the cities in the world, Detroit may be best positioned to become the world’s first one hundred percent food self-sufficient city.

This isn’t just a crazy idea from some guy who lives in California. He documents several examples of people right now, today growing food in Detroit. It wouldn’t surprise me, frankly, if Detroit produces more food inside its borders today than any other traditional American city.

About five hundred small plots have been created by an international organization called Urban Farming, founded by acclaimed songwriter Taja Sevelle. Realizing that Detroit was the most agriculturally promising of the fourteen cities in five countries where Urban Farming now exists, Sevelle moved herself and her organization’s headquarters there last year. Her goal is to triple the amount of land under cultivation in Detroit every year. All food grown by Urban Farming is given free to the poor. According to Urban Farming’s Detroit manager, Michael Travis, that won’t change.

The fact that Urban Farming moved to Detroit is exactly the effect I’m talking about. To anyone with aspirations in this area, it is Detroit that offers the greatest opportunity to make your mark. It is the ultimate blank canvas. For urban agriculture and many other alternative urban dreams, it is Detroit, not New York City that is the ultimate arena in which to prove yourself.

It’s not just farmers, intellectuals and artists of various types are drawn to Detroit, both to study it and pursue ideas about the remaking of the city:

Detroit has achieved something unique. It has become the test case for all sorts of theories on urban decay and all sorts of promising ideas about reviving shrinking cities.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Sue Mosey, president of the University Cultural Center Association, who has been interviewed recently by two separate PBS crews and an Austrian journalist writing about Detroit.

“All of us have been inundated with all of these people who somehow think that because we’re so bottomed out and so weak-market, that this is this incredible opportunity,” Mosey said.

Robin Boyle, a professor of urban planning at Wayne State University who has been interviewed by numerous visitors, echoed that sentiment.

“They realize that there is an interesting story to tell, that has real characters, but even more, they discover a place that is simply not like everywhere else,” he said.

Toby Barlow wrote in the New York Times about out of towners buying up $100 houses, moving to Detroit, and doing all sorts of interesting things with them:

Recently, at a dinner party, a friend mentioned that he’d never seen so many outsiders moving into town…Two other guests that night, a couple in from Chicago, had also just invested in some Detroit real estate. That weekend Jon and Sara Brumit bought a house for $100.
….
A local couple, Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert, started the ball rolling. An artist and an architect, they recently became the proud owners of a one-bedroom house in East Detroit for just $1,900. Buying it wasn’t the craziest idea. The neighborhood is almost, sort of, half-decent. Yes, the occasional crack addict still commutes in from the suburbs but a large, stable Bangladeshi community has also been moving in.

So what did $1,900 buy? The run-down bungalow had already been stripped of its appliances and wiring by the city’s voracious scrappers. But for Mitch that only added to its appeal, because he now had the opportunity to renovate it with solar heating, solar electricity and low-cost, high-efficiency appliances.

Buying that first house had a snowball effect. Almost immediately, Mitch and Gina bought two adjacent lots for even less and, with the help of friends and local youngsters, dug in a garden. Then they bought the house next door for $500, reselling it to a pair of local artists for a $50 profit. When they heard about the $100 place down the street, they called their friends Jon and Sarah.
….

But the city offers a much greater attraction for artists than $100 houses. Detroit right now is just this vast, enormous canvas where anything imaginable can be accomplished. From Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project (think of a neighborhood covered in shoes and stuffed animals and you’re close) to Matthew Barney’s “Ancient Evenings” project (think Egyptian gods reincarnated as Ford Mustangs and you’re kind of close), local and international artists are already leveraging Detroit’s complex textures and landscapes to their own surreal ends.

In a way, a strange, new American dream can be found here, amid the crumbling, semi-majestic ruins of a half-century’s industrial decline. The good news is that, almost magically, dreamers are already showing up. Mitch and Gina have already been approached by some Germans who want to build a giant two-story-tall beehive. Mitch thinks he knows just the spot for it.

It’s what Jim Russell likes to call “Rust Belt chic”, and Detroit has it in spades.

This piece also highlights one the absolutely crucial advantage of Detroit. It’s possible to do things there. In Detroit, the incapacity of the government is actually an advantage in many cases. There’s not much chance a strong city government could really turn the place around, but it could stop the grass roots revival in its tracks.

Can you imagine a two-story beehive in Chicago? In many cities where strong city government still functions effectively, citizens are tied down by an array of regulations and permits that are actually enforced in most cases. Much of the South Side of Chicago has Detroit like characteristics, but the techniques of renewal in Detroit won’t work because they are likely against code and would be shut down the minute someone complained. Just as one quick example, my corner ice cream stand dared to put out a few chairs for patrons to sit on while enjoying a frozen treat on a hot day. The city cited them for not having a license. So they took them away and put up a “bring your own chair” sign. The city then cited them for that too. You can’t do anything in Chicago without a Byzantine array of licenses, permits, and inspections.

In central Indianapolis, which is in desperate need of investment, where the city can’t fill the potholes in the street, etc., the minute a few yuppies buy houses in an area and fix them up, they immediately petition for a historic district, a request that has never been refused, ensuring that anyone who ever wants to do anything will be forced to run a costly and grueling gauntlet of variances, permits, hearings, etc. Only the most determined are willing to put up with that.

In most cities, municipal government can’t stop drug dealing and violence, but it can keep people with creative ideas out. Not in Detroit. In Detroit, if you want to do something, you just go do it. Maybe someone will eventually get around to shutting you down, or maybe not. It’s a sort of anarchy in a good way as well as a bad one. Perhaps that overstates the case. You can’t do anything, but it is certainly easier to make things happen there than in most places because of the hand of government weighs less heavily.

What’s more, the fact that government is so weak has provoked some amazing reactions from the people who live there. In Chicago, every day there is some protest at City Hall by a group from some area of the city demanding something. Not in Detroit. The people in Detroit know that they are on their own and if they want something done they have to do it themselves. Nobody from the city is coming to help them. And they’ve found some very creative ways to deal with the challenges the result. Consider this from the Dowie piece:

About 80 percent of the residents of Detroit buy their food at the one thousand convenience stores, party stores, liquor stores, and gas stations in the city. There is such a dire shortage of protein in the city that Glemie Dean Beasley, a seventy-year-old retired truck driver, is able to augment his Social Security by selling raccoon carcasses (twelve dollars a piece, serves a family of four) from animals he has treed and shot at undisclosed hunting grounds around the city. Pelts are ten dollars each. Pheasants are also abundant in the city and are occasionally harvested for dinner.

This might sound awful, and indeed it is. But it is also an inspiration and a testament to the human spirit and defiant self-reliance of the American people. I grew up in a poor rural area where, while hunting is primarily recreational, there are still many people supplementing their family diet with wild game. Many a freezer is full of deer meat, for example. And of course, rural residents have long gardened, freezing and canning the results to help get them through the winter. So this doesn’t sound quite so strange to me as it might to you. The fate of the urban poor and the rural poor are more similar than is often credited. And contrary to stereotypes the urban poor often display amazing grit and ingenuity, and perform amazing feats to sustain themselves, their families and communities.

As the focus on agriculture and even hunting show, in Detroit people are almost literally hearkening back to the formative days of the Midwest frontier, when pioneer settlers faced horrible conditions, tough odds, and often severe deprivation, but nevertheless built the foundation of the Midwest we know, and the culture that powered the industrial age. No doubt in the 19th century many of those sitting secure in their eastern citadels thought these homesteaders, hustlers, and fortune seekers crazy for leaving the comforts of civilization to head to places like Iowa and Chicago. But some saw the possibilities of what could be and heeded the call to “Go West, young man.” We’ve come full circle.

via urbanophile.com

Posted via web from Marco Channing

Inhabitat » 3Prong Power Upgrades Any Prius to Plug-in Status

3Prong Power Upgrades Any Prius to Plug-in Status

by Ariel Schwartz, 10/27/09

Toyota is leasing 500 prototype plug-in hybrid Prius’s to lucky recipients in the U.S, Europe, and Japan next year, but what about all the other Prius owners who want to provide some plug-in juice to their cars? Enter 3Prong Power, a Berkeley, California startup that offers plug-in hybrid conversions for first, second and third generation Prius’s as well as the Ford Escape Hybrid.

Photo by Chris Duffey for the East Bay Express

The conversion, which is the first available for first generation Prius’s, creates a 35-mile EV mode for the vehicles. So drivers can fill up with petroleum at a gas station — or fill the electric tank in any standard electrical outlet.

3Prong’s conversion isn’t cheap, with prices ranging from $3,499 to $11,499 (the most expensive option has a 40-mile EV mode). But at the same time, the conversion stands to cut fuel costs by up to a quarter, since electricity costs less than petroleum. At the moment, 3Prong only offers its services in the Bay Area. Don’t be surprised, however, if similar Prius conversion companies pop up elsewhere as PHEVs become more popular.

via inhabitat.com

Posted via web from Marco Channing

Tommy Davis: Scientology’s New Angry, Unstable Pitchman

Tommy Davis, the latest chief spokesman and outraged-interview-cutter-offer for the Church of Scientology, is a callow Hollywood brat, Tom Cruise hanger-on, and “drug revert” who thinks “L. Ron Hubbard is the coolest guy ever.”

Scientology has a long history of spastic, sweaty spokespersons with creepy laughs who eventually crack under the pressure and leave the organization. There was Robert Vaughn Young, who publicly renounced the church in 1989 after decades in its leadership. He was followed by Mike Rinder, an unhinged Australian bulldog who decided to stop lying for church leader David Miscavige last year and spoke out publicly about the cult’s bizarre and arbitrary cruelty in June.

The latest inheritor of Young and Rinder’s mantle as the unsettling public face of scientology is Tommy Davis, the head of the cult’s Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles. Davis lived up to the role last week by walking out on ABC News’s Martin Bashir during a Nightline interview after Bashir asked him about Xenu, the intergalactic warlord that Hubbard believed is responsible for saddling us all with a bunch of crazy body thetans.

So who is this guy, and how long before he cracks up and turns against the church like all the rest?

• He’s a Hollywood scion.
  Davis, 37, is the son of actress Anne Archer and Jeffrey Davis, a real estate investor. According to Rolling Stone’s Janet Reitman, Davis “freely admits to being a Hollywood rich kid. He dresses in Italian suits, drives a BMW and is addicted to his Blackberry. ‘I have enough money to never work a day in my life,’ he says.”
• He’s Tom Cruise’s BFF.
  According to the Daily Beast’s Kim Masters, Davis spent nearly a decade as Cruise’s “personal, full-time, assigned Scientology handler.” Claire Headley, a former Scientologist who left the cult five years ago, tells Masters: “‘He filtered everything, reported on what [Cruise] was doing to [Church of Scientology leader] David Miscavige.’ Officially, Davis was assigned to the church’s president’s office in the Celebrity Centre, she continues, but he was essentially with Cruise full-time from the late 1990s until 2005.” Davis worked intimately with Miscavige on the deeply strange Tom Cruise tribute video that was leaked to Gawker last year.
• He goes for stunts.
  When the BBC’s John Sweeney decided to make a documentary about Scientology two years ago for Panorama, Davis and his then-colleague Rinder decided to make a “counter-documentary,” and succeeded in goading Sweeney into an angry outburst that they caught on camera and distributed widely in order to discredit him. Davis harangued Sweeney mercilessly in the middle of Scientology’s graphic “Psychiatry: Industry of Death” exhibit, and Sweeney later said of his enraged response: “I felt they were trying to control my mind.” In the course of the same documentary, Davis walked out of an interview after Sweeney called Scientology a “sinister cult.” After walking out on Bashir last week, Davis reportedly showed up unannounced at ABC News headquarters less than an hour before Nightline’s airtime and demanded that the piece be spiked. He was rebuffed.
• He probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
  While Davis has said in the past that he is “familiar with” the “confidential scriptures” of Scientology that tell the story of Xenu, he’s also told CNN’s John Roberts that talk of “space parasites” is “unrecognizable to me.” Discussions of Xenu are strictly verboten among Scientologists who haven’t yet reached, and paid for, the OT-III—or Operating Thetan, level three—step on the cult’s “bridge to total freedom,” during which Xenu’s exploits are revealed. Members are told that if they hear about Xenu before their minds are properly prepared, it will make them retarded, insane, or even kill them. Masters speculates that Davis’ dumbfounded reaction to Bashir’s question may have been genuine:
  

  Headley suspects Tommy Davis has never participated in upper-level training in which the story of Xenu would have actually been revealed. She thinks that may be why he walked out of the Nightline interview when asked about it. “In Scientology, no one can talk about it, whether you’ve done it or not,” she says. “If you talk about it when you’re not up to that level, you can be banned from ever doing it.”

  Davis wouldn’t tell her whether he’d reached OT-III, but according to a partial database of Scientology course completions gleaned from announcements in church publications, he hasn’t.

• He’s a “drug revert” and all around troublemaker.
  Masters says Davis has a reputation for mischief. He was a “happy-go-lucky” teen who was caught smoking pot, which makes him in church parlance a “drug revert” and should have barred him from serving in the cult’s leadership. Davis denies being a revert. But he has, according to Masters, gotten into more recent trouble with his superiors. After the BBC flap, Masters says, he briefly “blew” from the Sea Org and went AWOL, an infraction that earned him a stint cleaning toilets in the church’s Clearwater, Fla., international headquarters—though Masters doesn’t use the term, it certainly sounds like Davis was shunted off to the “Rehabilitation Project Force,” the church’s punitive gulag for staff members who fall out of line. Davis’ former friend, ex-Scientologist Jason Beghe, told the Village Voice last year that he could see from the look on Davis’ face during a CNN interview that he’d been RFP’d.
• He probably won’t last long.
  Davis hasn’t been doing a great job. The Nightline interview was another in a string of embarrassments for the church, and Paul Haggis’ high-profile defection over the weekend—announced in an open letter to Davis—is likely not sitting well with Miscavige. Davis’ job is to “handle” anyone who would do harm to the church’s reputation, and his tenure thus far has been marked by a string of pile-ups—angry confrontations; Haggis’ defection; John Travolta’s acknowledgment that, contrary to church dogma, autism is real; the St. Petersburg Times‘ devastating series detailing the revelations of high-profile defectors about Miscavige’s violent and insane regime. He also has personal relationships with people who’ve left the church—he worked with Rinder, and was close friends with Beghe—and has left the reservation before. How much abuse and lying can he take before he follows them out the door?

via gawker.com

Posted via web from Marco Channing

What To Do On A Long Layover in Hong Kong

What To Do On A Long Layover in Hong Kong

Posted on October 27th, 2009 by Peter Greenberg –>

Is it possible to truly experience a new city in eight hours?

Flying from Los Angeles to southern China, Cathay Pacific’s late-night departure dropped me off in Hong Kong at 7:30 a.m. My flight to Guangzhou on the mainland was scheduled to depart that evening.

One thing was for sure, there was no way I would spend my layover curled up in the airport lounge, no matter how tempting a nap and free nibbles sounded. Nothing says faux-traveler than someone who claims to have “been” in a country when they never left the airport.

Armed with little more than a guidebook and Suzy Gershman’s “Postcard from Hong Kong,” my biggest concerns involved getting from point A to B to C in the shortest amount of time. With little sense of the territory’s layout and transportation options, even a day-long layover seemed too short for comfort.

More Hong Kong travel: Off the Brochure Travel Guide: Hong Kong

As it turns out, the amenities of a business-friendly destination also benefits leisure travelers. There’s good reason that Hong Kong International Airport consistently wins awards for efficiency and amenities. Sprawled over more than 74,000 square feet, the massive space might seem intimidating on the surface, but bright, bold signs in both Chinese and English (Hong Kong’s official languages are Cantonese and English) make it easy to navigate.

Built in 1998 on reclaimed land, the airport underwent a major expansion in 2007 with the addition of Terminal 2 and a new train platform. And inside Terminal 2 is one very handy amenity: a shower.

That’s right, at the pay-in lounge underneath the Airport Express platform, travelers can pay about US$18 for use of a private bathroom and shower—ideal for business travelers heading straight to a meeting or leisure passengers on long layovers.

Automatic kiosks make buying tickets for the Airport Express easy, and there are only three train stops—Tsing Yi, Kowloon and Hong Kong—making the whole “point A to point B” concern moot. Twenty-three minutes later, the doors opened to an indoor maze between International Finance Centre (IFC) building and the MTR Central Station.

One step outside into the humid air and dense traffic assured me that I was about to waste valuable time, so I turned right back around toward the taxi stand. Though I had prepared for language barriers by having a flight attendant translate some major sights into Chinese character translations for a few major destinations, the driver understood my English request to get to Victoria Peak.

Victoria Peak is probably the most touristy option of all, but considered a must-see even by locals. Standing more than 1,800 feet high, it is the highest point on the hilly island.

Atop the steep slope, visitors are greeted by pleasant, though not mind-blowing views—often obscured by smog—and a busy galleria proudly featuring both Starbucks and McDonald’s. Victoria Peak also has some nature walks including a scenic loop and a road that heads all the way down to the university, but poor signage, construction and high humidity put an end to that quickly.

Learn more with the Off the Brochure Travel Guide: Hong Kong

Hot and sticky (so much for my shower), I decided that the best way to do a cultural comparison between East and West was to test out a Starbucks iced latte. Turns out, they’re exactly the same, and when you’re discombobulated in a foreign city, sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

I noticed English signs pointing toward Central—Hong Kong’s commercial hub where the Airport Express had dropped me off. So that taxi ride really hadn’t been necessary. I skipped the return ride on the tram and took the more local option: the number 15 bus.

Bumping through the hills of Hong Kong, we picked up locals along the way, where even in the smaller communities outside the central business district, the population was an international and cosmopolitan mix of Asians and Westerners.

Learn more about Hong Kong’s culture with A “Belonger” Looks Back at Hong Kong as Its Capitalist Heart Beats On.

I got off the bus once I began seeing English signs for the Central Mid-Levels Escalator.

The world’s longest moving escalator is an easy way to travel into the hillside (although it runs downhill until about 10 a.m. for commuters).

At certain drop-off points, travelers can get off into sloping backroads that are packed with a mix of street markets filled junky trinkets, boutique-y shops and restaurants featuring every ethnic cuisine under the sun.

For some reason, a sushi bar called out to me. No, it wasn’t “authentic” Chinese, but I justified that sushi was perfectly fitting seeing that I was in Asia, and surrounded by water. To make up for the uninspired dining choice I picked the more exotic-looking items, which included chilled marinated sea cucumbers and sea urchins.

Learn more about Asian Culinary Vacations: Noodling Around in the East.

In the hills of Central, another kind of business thrives: massage and reflexology parlors.

An elderly woman handing out fliers sealed the deal when I saw that she was hawking a place called Healthy Foot and she promised in broken English that that they were “very professionals.”

An hour later, I emerged HK$198 (about $25) poorer, but with happy feet and shoulders, and the realization that this is exactly what hundreds of Hong Kong locals do on their lunch hour.

It was time get out of Central. A good option would have been the Star Ferry to Kowloon, but it was already afternoon. and leaving Hong Kong Island seemed like a risky move.

Learn more with Suzy Gershman’s Postcard from Hong Kong: Shopping, Spas and Salon de Ning.

Instead, I discovered the double-decker tram, aka a “ding ding,” which travels along Des Voeux Road between Central and the Western districts.

Feeling more like a local than ever, I sat at the back of the upper level to watch the street activity behind us, packed with pedestrians and vehicles and storefronts with signs that no longer had English translations.

I consulted my map only to discover I had traveled much further into the Western district than I had intended. No matter.

When traveling in a straight line, it’s hard to get lost.

I paid my HK$2, hopped off and began following my nose back toward Central.

Along with pungent Chinese herbal medicine stores, Des Voeux Road’s claim to fame is store after store selling dried seafood—the sidewalk is literally lined with vats and vats of fish, shrimp, abalone, and mushrooms the size of my head, along with a variety of unrecognizable but powerful-smelling dried goods.

Now 3 p.m., it was time to make one final stop before getting back on the Airport Express. I wandered back a few blocks away from the waterfront toward the Landmark Mandarin Oriental where I shared my day with a friend who joined me at the posh bar.

“Did you have dim sum?”

“No, sushi.”

“Did you visit a tea house?”

“No (cringe) Starbucks.”

“You North Americans. You didn’t experience the real Hong Kong.”

Sweaty, disheveled and entirely satisfied with my eight hours in this complicated, cosmopolitan and chaotic city, I had to disagree.

By Sarika Chawla for PeterGreenberg.com. Stay tuned for Sarika’s excursion north onto mainland China in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Learn more about China Travel. Or visit our Asia Travel section.

Learn more about the history and culture of the city with: A “Belonger” Looks Back at Hong Kong as Its Capitalist Heart Beats On

More travel information can be found in the Off the Brochure Travel Guide: Hong Kong and Suzy Gershman’s Postcard from Hong Kong.

via petergreenberg.com

Posted via web from Marco Channing

WHO Philippines

Updates: Tropical Storm Ketsana (“Ondoy”), Typhoon Parma (“Pepeng”), Typhoon Lupit (“Ramil”) 

Health Cluster Situation Report 18
26 October 2009

---

• Location: Philippines
• Covering Period:  23-25 October 2009

---

Main points

Tropical Storm Ketsana

890 117 families / 4 360 153 individuals have been affected in 1 950 barangays. 31 508 families / 146 131 individuals remain in 367 evacuation centres

Casualties (directly attributable to disaster): 464 Dead, 529 injured

As of 25 October 2009, 139 896 families / 1 294 551 individuals reside in still-flooded areas in 28 municipalities in NCR (3), Region III (1) and Region IV-A (24)

As of 23 October 2009, reports from DOH Hospitals and some private hospitals in NCR show 2 089 cumulative admissions for leptospirosis since the disaster with 162 deaths

As of 24 October 2009, a total of 67 364 individuals have been given leptospirosis prophylaxis

As of 20 October 2009, NEC reports that the top 5 morbidities in evacuation centers are: acute respiratory illness, skin infections, wounds, acute gastroenteritis, influenza-like illness, severe acute respiratory illness/pneumonia

DOH has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with private hospitals to ensure proper referral of leptospirosis patients from overwhelmed government hospitals

As of 25 October 2009, mobile missions have been conducted by DOH with 265 Medical, 36 Psychosocial, 42 WASH, 2 Nutrition, 3 Disease Surveillance, 19 Assessment, and 48 Public Health teams to 526 sites

Typhoon Parma

954 087 families / 4 478 284 individuals have been affected in 5 486 barangays. 3 258 families / 14 892 individuals remain in 54 evacuation centres

As of 24 October 2009, 2 708 families / 10 151 individuals from Region III reside in still-flooded areas

Casualties (directly attributable to disaster): 719 Dead , 207 injured
More than 498M (USD 10.3 M) in damage to health facilities has been reported

Typhoon Lupit

1 271 families / 5 239 persons conducted pre-emptive evacuation in 43 barangays, 19 municipalities and 2 cities in 7 provinces of Regions I, II and CAR. As of 24 October 2009, 402 families / 1 866 persons are still inside 19 evacuation centers in Benguet Province

Tropical Storm Ketsana

Health Situation Assessment

• NDCC reported that the number of evacuees decreased to 31 508 families / 146 131 individuals in 367 evacuation centres. 890 117 families / 4 360 153 individuals have been affected in 1 950 barangays in Regions I, II, III, IVA, IVB, V, VI, IX, XII, ARMM, CAR, and NCR.

• As of 25 October 2009, 139 896 families / 1 294 551 individuals reside in still-flooded areas in 28 municipalities in NCR (3), Region III (1) and Region IV-A (24). Please refer to http://www.un.org.ph/response.html for maps of these flooded areas.
• Updates on leptospirosis.

• As of 23 October 2009, reports from DOH Hospitals and preliminary data from private hospitals in NCR alone show 2 089 admissions for Leptospirosis with 162 deaths since the disaster.

• NEC reports that 1.7M people in affected areas are at high-risk exposure, with 1.3M of these eligible for prophylaxis (excluding pregnant women and children). NEC projects that 3 800 will get infected, 20% of which will be complicated cases.

• The food poisoning cases in San Pedro, Laguna are still under investigation.

• As of 20 October 2009, NEC reports that the top 5 morbidities in evacuation centers are: acute respiratory illness (54%), skin infections/wounds (18%), acute gastroenteritis (14%), influenza-like illness (7%), severe acute respiratory illness/pneumonia (0.3%).

• Psychosocial issues identified by DOH psychosocial teams deployed since 30 September 2009 are: loss, powerlessness, poverty, social marginalization, political cynicism, gender sensitivity, inequities in aid received, and loss of sense of security.

Health Cluster Response

• The Department of Health (DOH) in cooperation with the LGUs have developed a strategy for leptospirosis prevention, control, and treatment. Prophylaxis for Leptospirosis has been started by DOH on 17 October 2009. As of 24 October 2009, a total of 67 364 individuals have been given leptospirosis prophylaxis (NCR: 34 807 individuals in Marikina, 663 in Malabon, 7 301 in Quezon City, 5 848 individuals in Taguig; Region IVA: 12 350 individuals in Rizal; 5 700 in Laguna).

• DOH signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with 5 PhilHealth-accredited private medical facilities where leptospirosis patients who can no longer be accommodated in state hospitals will be referred. DOH, through a set subsidy package within the MOA, will subsidize the financial requirements of these referred patients.

• The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) team has arrived in Manila.

• As of 23 October 2009, The following health services have also been provided to NCR, CHD III, and CHD-IV: A total of 16 178 individuals have received medical care through ambulatory response and through hospital referral. A total of 3 797 individuals have been given Psychosocial Intervention. 194 water sources have undergone water testing, and 661 toilets facilities have been inspected.

• 17 504 individuals in NCR, 213 in Region III, and 2 062 in Region IVA have been given measles vaccination. Vitamin A supplememtation for children 0-71 months has been given to 51 110 children in NCR, 250 in Region III, and 2 457 in Region IVA. 19 779 individuals in total have been given measles immunization and 21 696 in total have been given Vitamin A.

• As of 23 October 2009, 227 portalets have been distributed by DOH, 154 of which are still on site. For a detailed distribution list, please visit: http://www.un.org.ph/response/clusters/health.

• WHO has completed its distribution of 10 100 jerry cans with 5 100 jerry cans sent to NCR and 5 000 jerry cans sent to Region IV-A.

• As of 22 October 2009, DOH has responded to the psychosocial needs by deploying 41 psychosocial teams to 41 sites. Interventions were done by debriefing/processing (1432 individuals), defusing (2022 individuals), grief counseling and stress management (1373 individuals), and psychosocial program for 1387 children.

• Revision of the FLASH appeal is currently being processed, with noted emphasis on priority areas such as access to essential health services, reproductive health services, disability and chronic diseases, mental health and psychosocial support, and information dissemination.

Critical Constraints

• Several areas have limited access to health services and aid
• Fluidity of evacuation camp situation hinders accurate mapping, assessment, and disease surveillance
• Prolonged high-risk exposure due to retained flood water in many areas is expected

 

Urgent Needs

• Scaling up access of essential health services to all affected
• Improve case-based disease surveillance for communicable diseases and health and humanitarian service coverage in evacuation centers
• Increase resources aimed at containing the spread of water-borne and vector-borne diseases
• Ensuring a return to functionality of primary care facilities and re-establishment of essential health care activities, including vaccination
 

Typhoon Parma

Health Situation Assessment

• NDCC reported that 3 258 families / 14 892 individuals remain in 54 evacuation centres. 954 087 families / 4 478 284 individuals have been affected in 5 486 barangays in Regions I, II, III, IVA, V, VI, NCR, and CAR.

• As of 23 October 2009, 38 barangays in 1 municipality in Region 1 (Calasiao, Pangasinan – 24) and 3 municipalities in Region III (Bulacan – 3) are still flooded, affecting 18 188 families / 77 796 individuals. Please refer to http://www.un.org.ph/response.html for maps of these flooded areas.

• Php 426M (USD 8.8 M) in damage to 3 DOH Hospitals and 3 LGU health facilities have been reported.

Health Cluster Response

• As of 22 October 2009, DOH has deployed 7 medical teams, 1 public health, 1 nutrition, 1 surveillance team, 3 assessment team and 2 WASH teams to 14 sites in Regions I, II, III and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

Critical Constraints

• Several areas still remain flooded (see above) 

Urgent Needs

• Continued monitoring of the health situation in the affected communities and in evacuation centers to determine the most urgent current and arising health needs

With contributions from:

UNICEF

UNFPA

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

MSF

Philippine National Red Cross

USAID

Save the Children

Handicap International

Australian Aid International (AAI)

Plan International

Corporate Network for Disaster Response (CNDR)

Community and Family Services International (CFSI)

Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP)

Integrated Midwives Association of the Philippines (IMAP)

References:
1. Department of Health – Health Emergency Management Staff (DOH-HEMS) – Health Emergency Alert Reporting System (HEARS)

2. National Disaster Coordinating Council Update – Situation Report No.23 (6 October 2009, 2300 hrs)

3. Daily updates from health cluster agencies and health cluster meetings

For more information, please contact:

WHO Country Office
Dr Paul Andrew Zambrano
Email: zambranop@wpro.who.int

Dr Rene Andrew Bucu
Email: bucur@wpro.who.int

via wpro.who.int

Posted via web from Marco Channing

How to recycle your old gadgets

by Laura June posted Oct 27th 2009 at 1:56PM

We see a lot of gadgets come in the door here at Engadget. In fact, getting them in the door is actually the easy part… it’s getting them back out that’s a bit confusing. Recycling — something that most of us do on a day-to-day basis with our trash — is a bit stickier when it comes to gadgets. In recent years, however, most major consumer electronics companies have stepped up their games a bit and begun “take back” recycling programs of their own. There are a lot of resources out there if you want to rid yourself of old gadgets in a responsible way, but it can be a pretty overwhelming prospect, especially if (like us) you have an actual pile of old cellphones which has been growing since 1998. We thought about that a lot, and decided to try to make sense of all the wild masses of information out there on the internet, and to provide our readers a central location to look for all that information. Read on and see what we’ve come up with!

Like we said, there is a ton of information available, and countless companies that recycle electronics independently. What follows is a guide to individual companies’ recycling programs (if they have them), and a list of general and governmental resources that are well-respected and reputed within the industry. Every company handles take back and recycling a bit differently, so be sure to read all of their information before making the decision as to how to handle your old gadgets. For instance, if your mobile phone manufacturer doesn’t have a recycling program — check with your carrier, or one of the independent resources listed. We’ve done our best to hit all the bases, but feel free to hit us up if we’ve missed something so that we can add it — and good luck — we hope the list helps you reclaim some storage space!

Note: most of these resources are US (in some cases, North America) only.

Individual companies

Acer – Acer Recycling Program – Acer’s recycling program is limited, and varies state by state. Currently, it accepts any product manufacted by Acer in California, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington.

Apple – Apple Recycling Program – Apple’s recycling and takeback varies a bit from state-to-state. The company currently offers free old equipment takeback (of any make or model) with the purchase of a new Mac, and also offers anytime computer and iPod mail-in recycling with the purchase of a $30 pre-paid shipping label on the site.

ASUS - ASUS Green ASUS Takeback and Recycling Program - ASUS has partnered with Metech Recycling for free takeback of ASUS-manufactured products. Consumers can fill out an online form, and will be mailed a shipping label to return their old gear. A fee applies for non-ASUS products.

Canon – Canon Recycling Program Canon offers takeback recycling on all of its consumer products. Shipping label is sent via email after registering your product on the website.

Dell – Dell Recycling Dell’s recycling program will take back any Dell-branded product at any time, and if you choose the free recycling option at the time of buying a new Dell product, the company will take away your old equipment regardless of manufacturer. Dell has also partnered with the National Cristina Foundation (NCF) in order to help disabled and economically disadvantaged people get access to computer equipment. You can donate your equipment to the NCF via Dell’s site.

Dyson – Dyson Recycling – (UK mainland-only) Dyson will come by and pick up your old vacuum, regardless of make.

Epson – Epson Recycling Program A flat $10 fee applies for the return of any item, with a $5 coupon good for purchases made at the Epson store.

Fujitsu – Fujitsu Recycling Information Fujitsu complies with the electronic waste laws enacted in California, Maine and Maryland (because it has to), but does not operate a recycling program independently.

Gateway – Gateway Trade-in Program Gateway offers direct recycling in California, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. In all other states, it is partnered with Dealtree, which offers money in exchange for recycling-bound electronics. If your trade-ins are determined to have zero value, they will still be picked up and recycled free of charge.

Hitachi – Hitachi Recycling Hitachi complies with state-to-state e-waste laws, but does not operate any other programs.

HP – HP Eco Solutions HP’s Planet Partners recycling program covers a wide array of HP and non-HP produced products (some with a charge associated), including batteries, cellphones, ink cartridges, pcs, and monitors. HP provides support and take back on all of its products.

Intel – Intel Environment – Information on Intel’s environmental impact and policies, as well as data on the company’s recycling activities.

Lenovo – Eco Take Back Free shipping and recycling of all Lenovo products and select IBM products.

LG – LG Electronics Program LG is partnered with WM Recycle America to recycle LG, Zenith and GoldStar brands of televisions, monitors, audio equipment, video cassette players and recorders, DVD players and recorders, combination TV/VCR and TV/DVD units, and set top boxes and accessories associated with those products. Customers can drop off up to five of these items at a time, and smaller items can be returned with an LG recycling mailer.

Motorola – Take-back programs Motorola accepts mobile phones and their associated accessories of any brand. Motorola includes mailers with many of its new products, and provides free postage-paid labels on its website.

Nintendo – Product Take back and Recycling Program Nintendo of America provides a phone number for customers to call in and make arrangements for mailing back Nintendo products for recycling.

Nokia USA – Repair and Recycle Nokia customers can drop off mobile phones at any Nokia Flagship Store, and it provides mail-in information on its website. Nokia also has a Trade-Up program where customers can get cash back for their old phone with the purchase of a new Nokia device.

Palm – Palm Take Back & Recycling Palm does not operate its own take back and recycling program, but offers detailed instructions on erasing and preparing your device for recycling.

Panasonic – Panasonic Nationwide Recycling Program Panasonic’s recycling program covers all Panasonic-branded products, and is operated by MRM.

Philips – Philips Global recycling initiatives – Currently, Philips does not have a US-based recycling program. Philips is a charter member of the UN-supported StEP Initiative (see below).

Samsung – Samsung Recycling Direct Samsung has partnered with a number of recyclers nationwide and provides free drop off of all Samsung products at a location near the consumer. Non-Samsung products can also be dropped off for a fee.

Sharp – Sharp Recycling Program – Sharp has teamed up with MRM Recycling for television takeback. Check the website for battery and ink / toner recycling.

Sony – Sony Take Back Recycling Program Sony’s teamed up with Waste Management eCycling centers for free drop off and recycling of all Sony products.

Sony Ericsson – Sony Ericsson Recycle Sony Ericsson provides detailed information and free shipping labels for return of its products.

Toshiba – Toshiba Green Programs Allows for return of any electronics, regardless of brand, for free as a part of its Trade-In Program.

Wireless Carriers

AT&T – AT&T Reuse and Recycle

Sprint - Sprint / Nextel’s Wireless Buyback and Project Connect Recycling Programs

T-Mobile – T-Mobile Handset Recycling

Verizon Wireless – Verizon Wireless Hopeline Phone Recycling

Retail Stores

Best Buy – Best Buy’s Recycling program will take “nearly any” old electronic for free, though there is a $10 charge (with a $10 Best Buy gift certificate compensation) for TVs 32″ and under, CRTs, monitors and laptops.

Costco – Costco’s Trade-In Program offers a trade-in for electronics, with customers receiving Costco gift certificates in exchange.

GameStop – GameStop’s well known games trade-in program includes end of life recycling by the company.

Sam’s Club – Sam’s Club offers a website for registering and returning electronics for members.

WalMart – Operates a free cellphone recycling program. Customers can print a free shipping label on the site.

General Resouces

US Environmental Protection Agency’s Plug-In To eCycling Program is an extensive guide to national and local resources, partnered with many major manufacturers and service providers to help ensure our “garbage” goes to the right place.

call 2 recycle – a program for mobile phone and rechargeable battery recycling.

Wireless… the New Recyclable – Extensive resources, information, and partnerships for mobile phone recycling.

Greener Gadgets – A yearly conference held in New York City focusing on environmentally sound gadget design, reclamation, reuse, and recycling. The site also has a great list of electronics recycling resources.

Electronics Takeback Coalition – Maintains a site which will help you get rid of some of those old televisions you’ve got hiding in cupboards. Did you know that the EPA estimates that there are almost 100 million of those in the US?

Goodwill Industries, Inc – Goodwill accepts charitable donations of old computers and equipment. When all else fails, give it away!

StEP Initiative – UN organizations initiative to evaluate, legislate, and study e-waste problems around the world.

Basel Action Network – Information about safe, responsible e-cycling, and recycling companies which have been reported as violating safety and shipping policies.

via engadget.com

Posted via web from Marco Channing

How to recycle your old gadgets

by Laura June posted Oct 27th 2009 at 1:56PM

We see a lot of gadgets come in the door here at Engadget. In fact, getting them in the door is actually the easy part… it’s getting them back out that’s a bit confusing. Recycling — something that most of us do on a day-to-day basis with our trash — is a bit stickier when it comes to gadgets. In recent years, however, most major consumer electronics companies have stepped up their games a bit and begun “take back” recycling programs of their own. There are a lot of resources out there if you want to rid yourself of old gadgets in a responsible way, but it can be a pretty overwhelming prospect, especially if (like us) you have an actual pile of old cellphones which has been growing since 1998. We thought about that a lot, and decided to try to make sense of all the wild masses of information out there on the internet, and to provide our readers a central location to look for all that information. Read on and see what we’ve come up with!

Like we said, there is a ton of information available, and countless companies that recycle electronics independently. What follows is a guide to individual companies’ recycling programs (if they have them), and a list of general and governmental resources that are well-respected and reputed within the industry. Every company handles take back and recycling a bit differently, so be sure to read all of their information before making the decision as to how to handle your old gadgets. For instance, if your mobile phone manufacturer doesn’t have a recycling program — check with your carrier, or one of the independent resources listed. We’ve done our best to hit all the bases, but feel free to hit us up if we’ve missed something so that we can add it — and good luck — we hope the list helps you reclaim some storage space!

Note: most of these resources are US (in some cases, North America) only.

Individual companies

Acer – Acer Recycling Program – Acer’s recycling program is limited, and varies state by state. Currently, it accepts any product manufacted by Acer in California, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington.

Apple – Apple Recycling Program – Apple’s recycling and takeback varies a bit from state-to-state. The company currently offers free old equipment takeback (of any make or model) with the purchase of a new Mac, and also offers anytime computer and iPod mail-in recycling with the purchase of a $30 pre-paid shipping label on the site.

ASUS - ASUS Green ASUS Takeback and Recycling Program - ASUS has partnered with Metech Recycling for free takeback of ASUS-manufactured products. Consumers can fill out an online form, and will be mailed a shipping label to return their old gear. A fee applies for non-ASUS products.

Canon – Canon Recycling Program Canon offers takeback recycling on all of its consumer products. Shipping label is sent via email after registering your product on the website.

Dell – Dell Recycling Dell’s recycling program will take back any Dell-branded product at any time, and if you choose the free recycling option at the time of buying a new Dell product, the company will take away your old equipment regardless of manufacturer. Dell has also partnered with the National Cristina Foundation (NCF) in order to help disabled and economically disadvantaged people get access to computer equipment. You can donate your equipment to the NCF via Dell’s site.

Dyson – Dyson Recycling – (UK mainland-only) Dyson will come by and pick up your old vacuum, regardless of make.

Epson – Epson Recycling Program A flat $10 fee applies for the return of any item, with a $5 coupon good for purchases made at the Epson store.

Fujitsu – Fujitsu Recycling Information Fujitsu complies with the electronic waste laws enacted in California, Maine and Maryland (because it has to), but does not operate a recycling program independently.

Gateway – Gateway Trade-in Program Gateway offers direct recycling in California, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. In all other states, it is partnered with Dealtree, which offers money in exchange for recycling-bound electronics. If your trade-ins are determined to have zero value, they will still be picked up and recycled free of charge.

Hitachi – Hitachi Recycling Hitachi complies with state-to-state e-waste laws, but does not operate any other programs.

HP – HP Eco Solutions HP’s Planet Partners recycling program covers a wide array of HP and non-HP produced products (some with a charge associated), including batteries, cellphones, ink cartridges, pcs, and monitors. HP provides support and take back on all of its products.

Intel – Intel Environment – Information on Intel’s environmental impact and policies, as well as data on the company’s recycling activities.

Lenovo – Eco Take Back Free shipping and recycling of all Lenovo products and select IBM products.

LG – LG Electronics Program LG is partnered with WM Recycle America to recycle LG, Zenith and GoldStar brands of televisions, monitors, audio equipment, video cassette players and recorders, DVD players and recorders, combination TV/VCR and TV/DVD units, and set top boxes and accessories associated with those products. Customers can drop off up to five of these items at a time, and smaller items can be returned with an LG recycling mailer.

Motorola – Take-back programs Motorola accepts mobile phones and their associated accessories of any brand. Motorola includes mailers with many of its new products, and provides free postage-paid labels on its website.

Nintendo – Product Take back and Recycling Program Nintendo of America provides a phone number for customers to call in and make arrangements for mailing back Nintendo products for recycling.

Nokia USA – Repair and Recycle Nokia customers can drop off mobile phones at any Nokia Flagship Store, and it provides mail-in information on its website. Nokia also has a Trade-Up program where customers can get cash back for their old phone with the purchase of a new Nokia device.

Palm – Palm Take Back & Recycling Palm does not operate its own take back and recycling program, but offers detailed instructions on erasing and preparing your device for recycling.

Panasonic – Panasonic Nationwide Recycling Program Panasonic’s recycling program covers all Panasonic-branded products, and is operated by MRM.

Philips – Philips Global recycling initiatives – Currently, Philips does not have a US-based recycling program. Philips is a charter member of the UN-supported StEP Initiative (see below).

Samsung – Samsung Recycling Direct Samsung has partnered with a number of recyclers nationwide and provides free drop off of all Samsung products at a location near the consumer. Non-Samsung products can also be dropped off for a fee.

Sharp – Sharp Recycling Program – Sharp has teamed up with MRM Recycling for television takeback. Check the website for battery and ink / toner recycling.

Sony – Sony Take Back Recycling Program Sony’s teamed up with Waste Management eCycling centers for free drop off and recycling of all Sony products.

Sony Ericsson – Sony Ericsson Recycle Sony Ericsson provides detailed information and free shipping labels for return of its products.

Toshiba – Toshiba Green Programs Allows for return of any electronics, regardless of brand, for free as a part of its Trade-In Program.

Wireless Carriers

AT&T – AT&T Reuse and Recycle

Sprint - Sprint / Nextel’s Wireless Buyback and Project Connect Recycling Programs

T-Mobile – T-Mobile Handset Recycling

Verizon Wireless – Verizon Wireless Hopeline Phone Recycling

Retail Stores

Best Buy – Best Buy’s Recycling program will take “nearly any” old electronic for free, though there is a $10 charge (with a $10 Best Buy gift certificate compensation) for TVs 32″ and under, CRTs, monitors and laptops.

Costco – Costco’s Trade-In Program offers a trade-in for electronics, with customers receiving Costco gift certificates in exchange.

GameStop – GameStop’s well known games trade-in program includes end of life recycling by the company.

Sam’s Club – Sam’s Club offers a website for registering and returning electronics for members.

WalMart – Operates a free cellphone recycling program. Customers can print a free shipping label on the site.

General Resouces

US Environmental Protection Agency’s Plug-In To eCycling Program is an extensive guide to national and local resources, partnered with many major manufacturers and service providers to help ensure our “garbage” goes to the right place.

call 2 recycle – a program for mobile phone and rechargeable battery recycling.

Wireless… the New Recyclable – Extensive resources, information, and partnerships for mobile phone recycling.

Greener Gadgets – A yearly conference held in New York City focusing on environmentally sound gadget design, reclamation, reuse, and recycling. The site also has a great list of electronics recycling resources.

Electronics Takeback Coalition – Maintains a site which will help you get rid of some of those old televisions you’ve got hiding in cupboards. Did you know that the EPA estimates that there are almost 100 million of those in the US?

Goodwill Industries, Inc – Goodwill accepts charitable donations of old computers and equipment. When all else fails, give it away!

StEP Initiative – UN organizations initiative to evaluate, legislate, and study e-waste problems around the world.

Basel Action Network – Information about safe, responsible e-cycling, and recycling companies which have been reported as violating safety and shipping policies.

via engadget.com

Posted via web from Marco Channing