NY Observer > Hewlett-Packard Company

Dealing With New York City’s 'E-Waste' Problem

Steven Cohen, Executive Director, Earth Institute Columbia University — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:48:10 -0500

Take a look in the back of your closet and haul out that old laptop running on Windows 95 with less computing power than your Blackberry.

In fact, go ahead and open your sock drawer and take out that first-generation Ipod that stopped working after it went through the rinse cycle in your blue jeans.

All of these electronic devices contain toxics: cadmium, lead and mercury.

According to a 2006 report to the Natural Resources Defense Council by students in Columbia’s M.P.A. Program in Environmental Science and Policy, over 100 million personal computers are tossed away every year and about 500 tons of electronic waste is disposed every week in New York City.

While most toxic waste is regulated by the federal government, small businesses and households are exempt from these rules. Seeing this problem, a number of governments here and in Europe have started to regulate the disposal of electronic waste.

On Feb. 13, the City Council passed its own E-waste bill.

Anthony DePalma writes in The New York Times:

The City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would impose a $100 fine on anyone who throws an old computer, printer or other electronic gadget into the trash. Recycling the electronic waste will become mandatory, and manufacturers will be required to take back their own products as well as those made by companies that have gone out of business…. read more »

Serene Dean Baquet Has a Birthday Cake In L.A. Times Newsroom

Tom Scocca — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 20:00:00 -0400

On Sept. 21, Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet turned 50 years old. read more »

Hewlett-Packard Lawyer Dinh Gives Washington the 'Viet-Spin'

Anna Schneider-Mayerson — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

On the fifth anniversary of the Sept. read more »

New York Times Kills Real Estate Blog

Observer Staff — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:38:18 -0400

This past weekend, the New York Times published the first issue of Key, a quarterly real estate magazine packed with 150 pages of features and full-page color ads of new condominiums and modern furniture.

Today, the paper officially killed The Walk Through, its real estate blog. The decision to discontinue the blog does not come as a complete surprise: There have been no new posts since Aug. 7.

Launched in November 2005, the blog has seen the number of posts declinining this summer. There were 58 posts in June, 20 in July, and just 2 in the August. That is, until today's goodbye post.

Deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, the Times' online czar, said that the newspaper is dedicated to trying out different blogs.

"We're experimenting, growing them, seeing what happens, what works, what doesn't work, what gets people engaged," Landman said.

But despite the increased focus and space given to real estate at the Times, the Walk Through didn't work out.

"The real estate blog was a national real estate blog," Landman said. "The real estate that seems to really get people involved is local. It's the local that grabs you by the throat."

The Walk Through was primarily written by Damon Darlin, a technology reporter based out of San Francisco who's been breaking Hewlett Packard news this past week on the front page, leaving little time for real estate blogging.

"The nature of ours was that we were not doing as much of the breaking stuff," Darlin said a few weeks before the blog was terminated. "It tended to be more of an aggregation site than a scoop-oriented blog."

So will the Times launch a local real estate site, in an effort to grab New York's property voyeurs?

"Possibly," said Mr. Landman. "We're trying different things. We've had some success with sports blogs. We've launched a couple political blogs. The idea is to spread out around the paper." -Michael Calderone

'My Soap Is Art!' Says Illegal Sidewalk Vendor

Ralph Gardner Jr. — Sun, 28 Jul 2002 20:00:00 -0400

Times may be tough, but they haven't gotten so bad that high-powered business executives are selling read more »