Expanding Minds Not Landfills

Sumona Dey stands next to a pile of laptops in the bottom floor of the China Trade Building, near Chinatown. The recruitment manager for World Computer Exchange, Dey is spending her Earth Day patiently waiting for donations of computers.

After an hour, no donations had come in, but Dey remains optimistic.

“We have some companies who have called saying they will be coming,” Dey says.

Dey works for World Computer Exchange, a global education and environment non-profit group. WCE is hosting “Expand Minds Not Landfills” today through Friday in celebration of Earth Day to create social change on two fronts. In regards to the environment, WCE works to keep used working computers and laptops out of landfills to help the environment -- and computer education is a second -- but equally important -- goal for the group.

Donated computers are shipped to schools in developing countries and volunteers teach students to use them.

“Volunteers find schools that need them [computers]. We seek volunteers who will do the training for the students, show them how the computers work and the Internet,” Dey says.

The last WCE shipment went from Chicago to Nigeria, along with seven volunteers. WCE has 25 chapters nationwide, and has sent more than 10,000 computers from Boston. The group is extending its stay in Chinatown after this week and will be accepting donations every Friday through the summer.

For more info: www.worldcomputerexchange.org

Allston-Brighton is Pretty Green Everyday

Allston and Brighton residents may not have a specific event in honor of Earth Day, but many people say they do something every day to save the Earth.

“I guess my job on Earth Day is to take out the recycling, and I’ve done a pretty good job I think,” said Nick DiGiornio, a Brighton resident who took out a box of empty wine bottles to be recycled at 10 a.m.

Another Brighton resident who had just woken up, Tina Georgieva, took out a stack of magazines and a pack of empty Heineken beer bottles to be recycled.
“Recycling these bottles is the easiest thing to do, I think everyone should do it, not just today but every day,” she said.

Further down in Allston, Jack, a Boston University student who was going into Shaw's, had no idea today was Earth Day, but he promised he would do his part -- even though he said he’s not a big environmentalist.

“I won’t use the plastic bags anymore, how’s that for an environmentalist?” he asked, promising that he would buy reusable totes on his way out.

For more information on neighborhood recycling -- http://recyclingcenters.org