MANILA, Philippines?Don?t just let old computers go into the mountains of electronic wastes piling up in dumpsites in some obscure part of Manila?s port area.
Fact is, some of them may still be rehabilitated and recycled as useful machines for use of the country?s public schools.
The iSchools Project of the Commission on Information and Communications technology (CICT) has embarked on a PC maintenance, recycling and e-waste management training-workshops to combat and benefit from the rapid increase in computer wastes.
Recently, it has concluded training on troubleshooting, identifying parts of computer system that may be needing service or replacement, proper disposal of e-wastes and creative recycling of PCs, which was participated in by teachers of 32 state universities and colleges nationwide.
The public high schools that were beneficiaries of the different computerization projects were also given the training.
As a result, an additional 512 computers resulted in a 67 percent revival rate of defective PC units used as laboratory materials, according to Toni Torres, iSchools project manager.
?We have to do something so they can continue using their computers as tools for teaching and learning. The training is our answer to wear and tear of computers,? she said in a statement released during the Serye news forum in Quezon City.
In the same forum, Emelita Aguinaldo, executive director of National Solid Waste Management Commission, stressed the need for the country to have its own policy on the extended producers responsibility (EPR) over e-wastes.
?The trend now is towards the extended producers responsibility, which mandates that materials should be recyclable,? she said.
?We are thinking of proposing to Congress the extended producers responsibility wherein manufactures of electronics should be responsible in the retrieval after the end of life of the equipment,? Aguinaldo added.
But she said this might cause a spike in the price of the products since producers would be surely passing on the cost of retrieval of the old electronics to the consumers.
Earlier, the Ecowaste Coalition warned the government to move fast to avert a ?full-blown chemical and humanitarian crisis? due to the continued dumping of electronic and computer parts by companies at the Pier 18 dumpsite in Manila.
The group said the dumping ground poses chemical risks and hazards especially to people foraging through the dump.
