The workshop, which provides specialized training and supervision to mentally and physically challenged adults in the community, is now a collection site for such electronics equipment that has reached the end of its usable life.

With just a faint touch of irony, the room that houses discarded television sets and computers is also the workshop’s gym, with exercise machines taking up much of the floor space.

Workshop director Jill Baxter was excited in January when the electronic waste—or e-waste—program was being planned by RRFB Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada Electronics Stewardship.

However, getting underway has been slow and expensive.

“We haven’t made a penny yet,” she said Friday as she looked around at the equipment that is ready for pickup and delivery to a central collection point.

The workshop started off in the hole, needing a $2,000 electronic scale capable of handling collected material that will weigh tons.

It takes tons to make any money since the workshop receives 16.5 cents a kilogram. A metric ton of 1,000 kilos (or 2,204 pounds) pays $165.

“In time, I can see us making a few dollars,” says Baxter.

Perhaps the biggest advantage so far, she says, is that it provides employment for the 31 clients at the workshop.

The program means more inside work at Conway Workshop and replaces a contract with Shaw Wood that ended when the company closed its Cornwallis Park operation several years ago. The workshop had earned money by packaging hardware that accompanied furniture made by Shaw.

“We did that for quite a while and since Shaw left I’ve been looking for something inside. We have too many outside jobs,” Baxter explained earlier this year.

When end-of-life electronics are dropped off at Conway Workshop, which is behind the Digby Area Arena, clients cut the dangling cables and stack the equipment on palettes.

“From here it’s shipped to wherever, Montreal I think,” said Baxter.

There are problems with the new program, which began just in February.

She points to a television picture tube lying on the floor. The previous owner found another use for the cabinet, but because the tube would be easily damaged in transit, the workshop can’t ship it and now must find some way to dispose of it.

“And people are still bringing in stereos. We’re not taking them. Maybe in the second phase,” she said. “One elderly gentleman brought in a VCR and we couldn’t take it. He said, ‘Well, take it home then’.”

People are still being educated, said Baxter, and thinks advertising might help.

RRFB did advertise the program at first but she’s seen little since, and Conway Workshop hasn’t the money to advertise.

“Most people are glad to get rid of their stuff and feel they’ve done something good (for the environment).”

The province-wide collection system is meant to provide consumers and businesses a place to drop off such electronics without charge and with the assurance that items will be responsibly recycled.

Items like computers contain a number of components, many of them toxic or otherwise hazardous, that are a problem for the province’s waste recycling program.

What you can—and cannot—drop off

Desktop computers

Includes Central Processing Units (CPUs), mice, keyboards, cables and other components within the computer.

Monitors

Devices for displaying images from computers or other sources that do not meet the definition of a television. Includes traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) and flat panel display technologies such as LCD and plasma.

Notebook computers

Includes portable computers such as notebook, laptop and tablet PCs.

Desktop printers

Printing devices designed to sit on a work surface and includes multi-function devices that may copy, scan, fax or print.

Televisions

Includes various display technologies such as CRTs, flat panel LCD or plasma, or rear projection.




Excluded items

Stereos, DVD players and cell phones come under the next phase of the electronics products stewardship regulation, which takes effect in February, 2009.

Computers, monitors, televisions and printers that are integrated into non-program products, such as vehicles or industrial equipment, are currently excluded from the program.