Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #02880



To: beam beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Richard Piotter richfile@rconnect.com
Date: Sun, 02 May 1999 16:43:21 -0500
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Scraping Ethics


You ever see what happens to the unsold items??? Most of the time, you
get a price drop all the way down to free if you're willing to go out on
garbage night. I miss not biking around everywhere I go. I don't get a
chance anymore to weave around town to destinations and realy see what
is being put out. If you want to be ethicly ok, you could always pay a
few bucks for a want ad in the classifieds. "WANTED: Broken Electronics!
Don't thow away! Let hobbyist salvage parts for projects." Hey, it's an
idea! I was looking for replacement parts for an Apple II+ and a
Commodore 64, and I ended up getting replacements! Try it! You might get
lucky! You may not be able to recycle ALL of the parts, but you can
salvage as much as possible, so not as much gets trashed!

TurtleTek@aol.com wrote:
>
> Greetings List,
>
> This is spring, the season of rain, flowers, baby animals, but most
> importantly GARAGE SALES! So, like I know many of you are, I'm going around
> stopping at all the local yard sales to look for valuable electronics such as
> walkmans and solar calculators.
>
> In one short weekend I was able to get 3 walkmans and 2 solar calculators for
> the total price of $7 US. Quite a good haul.
>
> Now..here comes the "ethics" part. Is it such a good idea to scrap a
> perfectly good piece of electronics for a single motor just because we got it
> cheap? Kind of a waste, no?
> I don't know, one of those walkmans I'm keeping for sure, it's pretty nice!
> As for those other two, should I tear 'em apart just for some motors?
>
> So, how "ethical" is it to go around trashing walkmans (and such) just to use
> a single part for a BEAM bot? I'd like the garage sales to sell broken things.
>
> -TurtleTek
>
> BTW: I have nothing against taking the solar panels off the calculators, they
> are "dual powered" and will work without them.

--


Richard Piotter
richfile@rconnect.com

The Richfiles Robotics & TI web page:
http://richfiles.calc.org

For the BEAM Robotics list:
BEAM Robotics Tek FAQ
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/bushbo/beam/FAQ.html

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