A May 6 article in The Guardian of Manchester, England, offers a chilling glimpse of massive toxic dumps in Ghana, where heaps of discarded computers, televisions and other electronic waste from the United States and Western Europe wind up. Thousands of tons of such trash—commonly called e-waste—are illegally shipped there from the developed world, laden with heavy metals like cadmium, mercury and lead. The high-tech trash also contains scraps of precious metals. Desperate for cash, poor inhabitants of Accra and other African cities—many of them children—sift through the dumps, burning the waste and pulling the pieces apart to extract the valuable fragments. The health hazard is appalling, and the problem has prompted international legislation restricting the shipping of e-waste—but clearly, it’s not always enforced.
That grim portrait underscores the fate of discarded electronics collected and shipped by disreputable merchants under the guise of “recycling.” But even digital junk headed for the local landfill carries the threat of leaching toxic chemicals into the environment. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 80 to 85 percent of the 2 million tons of electronic trash generated nationwide in 2005 wound up in landfills. E-waste represents about 2 percent of the nation’s total waste stream, according to the EPA, but it accounts for 70 percent of our country’s hazardous waste.
So where is one to turn when it’s time to discard the cell phone that just snapped in half, the now-obsolete laptop, or the flash drive that holds way less data than the new one you just got on sale? Fortunately, there are a couple of local recycling options—and besides keeping your busted electronic junk from being shipped off to Ghana, they’re free.
The newest e-waste recycling drop is at Mobilia, the furniture shop on the corner of Haywood and Walnut streets in downtown Asheville. Store manager Erika Ferraby sent away for a “Technotrash Can” after learning about it from a retailer in New York City whom she describes as an “expert in sustainability.”
“So far, we haven’t had that many people use it,” she says. But she wants downtown residents and shoppers to be aware that they can utilize the service free of charge. The receptacle, which sits just inside the front entrance, is actually just a big cardboard box that will get sealed up and shipped to a company called GreenDisk once it’s full. GreenDisk is based outside Seattle, and according to company spokesperson April Jordan, 98 percent of what’s sent to the facility is either recycled or put directly back into use. “We rely on a network of nonprofits and recycling facilities in the States,” notes Jordan, adding that the company makes every effort to ensure that none of what’s collected gets shipped overseas. Still-functional computers are serviced and funneled to nonprofits or schools; cell phones are passed along to a re-manufacturing specialist; and plastics are ground up and re-molded, reappearing as auto parts or household appliances. Once-prized CDs that are now a source of embarrassment can also be tossed in the Technotrash Can.
Mobilia has also been making an effort to work with local artists who use reclaimed nonelectronic materials. “That’s the best way to do it,” says Ferraby. “It’s local, it’s reclaimed—you can’t get any greener.” Reclaimed roof tiles never looked so good on a bed frame, and a countertop made of compressed sunflower seeds has attracted a lot of attention. Another novel item is the solar-powered backpack, which generates enough power to charge a camera or cell phone battery.
Meanwhile, every Friday is electronics-recycling day at the Buncombe County landfill, which for staffer Kristy Smith means assisting a steady stream of county residents who’ve come to chuck their old televisions. “We get dozens and dozens of TVs every Friday,” she says. Buncombe County accepts electronics for recycling every Friday—except holidays—from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the landfill (85 Panther Branch Road). It’s free for individual county residents with identification.
From the landfill, the e-waste is shipped to 3RC EnviroStation, a recycling facility in Winston-Salem. There, according to a company spokesperson, nearly everything is broken down and put back into production.
To find out what you can recycle in Mobilia’s Technotrash Can, visit http://www.greendisk.com. To find out what can be recycled at the Buncombe County Landfill, visit http://www.buncombecounty.org/governing/depts/GenServices/solidwaste_recycling.htm
There’s something stylish about a homemade lunch: It’s healthy, it makes good use of groceries and reduces the dining-out budget (not to mention the number of takeout cartons). But carrying lunch in vintage Tupperware or a ratty shopping bag isn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing. Remember how much fun it was to carry your Dukes of Hazzard lunch box to school? These grownup food carriers make brown-bagging a tasty prospect all over again.
• Make every day a picnic. Ten Thousand Villages (10 College St., Asheville, 254-8374) offers a two-layer lidded basket, made of smoked rattan from Vietnam. $48.
• The kid-friendly (but good for adults, too) Crocodile Creek insulated lunch box comes in a variety of plant and animal motifs. It’s 100-percent PVC-free. Find it at Enviro Depot (58 College St., Asheville, 252-9007). $15.99.
• Similar to the stacked tiffin boxes used throughout India, To-Go Ware’s sleek stainless-steel food carrier has two tiers and can be heated on the stovetop. Nest Organics (51 N. Lexington Ave., Asheville, 258-1901) sells the lunch boxes ($21.95) along with bamboo utensil sets and cotton sling bags to hold everything ($61.95 for the set). The shop also stocks bamboo picnic items.
• Retro-inspired designs abound at Mast General Store (15 Biltmore Ave. Asheville, 232-1883). The Tin Box Company makes upright metal lunch boxes like this Holly Hobby version. $4.99.
Try this on
It’s witchcraft ... make that Which?Craft, a creative independent craft fair cosponsored by Harvest Records (415 Haywood Road, West Asheville) and local craft entity Mystery Hand. The Saturday, May 17, event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will be held rain or shine, indoors and outside the Harvest Records store. Harvest also plans to open its bargain basement with thousands of CDs and records for $1 or less, and The Admiral will crank up the grill. Info: 258-2999 or .
Absolutely batty: The Nature Conservancy is now taking reservations for hikes at its Bat Cave Preserve in Hickory Nut Gorge. The relatively short, easy walk passes through woods boasting rare vegetation and arrives at the mouth of the largest granite-fissure cave in North America.
The two-hour hikes are offered Wednesdays and Saturdays from June 7 through August 9, departing at 10 a.m. and again at 2 p.m. Cost is $10 per person, and reservations are required. To learn more or to make a reservation, call 350-1431 and select option 4 or e-mail , leaving the date and time of the hike you wish to attend, as well as contact information.
Don’t miss it: Sweat. Sore muscles. Crowds. Companionship. Live music. It’s nearly time again for the Mountain Sports Festival, which commands Carrier Park in Asheville and the hills around on Saturday, May 31, and Sunday, June 1. This year the festival features an expanded menu of demos, races, clinics and musical entertainment. Sunday’s goings-on will also include a gear swap. Look for a complete festival guide in the May 28 edition of Mountain Xpress. Until then, call 251-4029 for information or visit the MSF’s stylish new Web site (http://www.mountainsportsfestival.com).
Do it for the fish: The Land O’ Sky chapter of Trout Unlimited will hold its second annual fundraiser barbecue at Lake Logan on Saturday, June 14. Proceeds benefit the nonprofit’s conservation and education programs.
Advance tickets—sold online (http://www.landoskytu.com) and at Curtis Wright Outfitters locations (http://www.curtiswrightoutfitters.com)—are $25 for adults and $10 for children 6 to 12. (Children under 5 get in free.) Purchased at the event, tickets are $30.
According to family lore, he was conceived in a canoe on Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain. His grandfather was the venerable Frank Bell. With his graceful origins and an esteemed paddling heritage, it’s no exaggeration to say that water flows through Will Leverette’s veins. Whitewater, to be exact.
When you sit down to chat with Leverette, it doesn’t take long before you’re swept away to a campfire ring along a rushing stream, listening to a seasoned riverman spin tales of paddling derring-do. But Will’s yarns are different than most you’ll hear today. They reach back to the simpler days of boating, days when canoes were made of wood and canvas, and before some of our most splendid gorges were flooded in the name of progress.
Couple Leverette’s love of paddling with a storytelling skill developed through years of work at summer camps, and you get his latest project: WaterWise: A history of Whitewater Paddling in Western North Carolina (1923-1980) (History Press, forthcoming; visit http://www.historypress.net). On the surface, the book is a history of whitewater paddling in the region. In the deeper currents, Leverette says, “It’s a memoir of my life growing up at camp and the remarkable people I was exposed to.”
Here’s a taste of the stories inside: In 1923, a year after founding Camp Mondamin in Tuxedo, Frank Bell had the notion to take a group of campers all the way to the Mississippi River by water. Bell, who was known as “Chief” to even his grandchildren, put his group in the water on Mud Creek in Henderson County and proceeded to the French Broad River. On what is now known as section 9 of the French Broad, the group faced a river-wide class IV rapid just upstream of Hot Springs.
From his position in the canoe’s stern, Chief surveyed the rapid and decided to run it. He and the young camper in the bow navigated the rapid’s main section successfully, but once clear of it found themselves headed for the deep, frothy hole at the bottom. The eddying current swallowed the canoe and tossed it end over end, forcing Chief and his apprentice to swim to the sandy beach below the rapid. They had to acquire another canoe before they could proceed on their journey. Thirty days later, they reached the Mississippi.
“It’s a boldness and an audacity that doesn’t exist today,” Leverette says of his grandfather’s epic trip 85 years ago. The paddle his grandfather used on that trip now hangs on Leverette’s wall. And the rapid that made twigs and torn cloth of his grandpa’s canoe bears the name “Frank Bell’s Rapid” to this day.
This is just one of the many stories Leverette recounts in his part-history, part-memoir. “Paddling has saved my life,” he writes in the introduction. “In 1989 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis while living in Salt Lake City, Utah. I thought my life was over, and the one I knew was over. During the first five years with the disease, I experienced a number of what doctors called remissions and exacerbations. I’d get very sick and even be unable to drive a car, hold a fork and work, much less ski, climb and paddle.”
Leverette went as far as contemplating taking his own life, but, as he says in the book, “someone shared with me a Chinese proverb that says the single greatest challenge humans face is to take our biggest weakness and turn it into our biggest strength. Whoa! That hit me like a ton of bricks. I quit hating MS. I quit having a perpetual pity party for myself and got on with my life. I might not be able to ski and climb anymore, but I could paddle.”
Leverette soon discovered that inflatable kayaks allowed him the freedom to paddle again, and he moved back East to be closer to his support group of family and friends in Western North Carolina.
Moving home also turned his thoughts to local paddling history. He started collecting photographs from his grandmother, Cala Bell, who had been a camp photographer and captured pivotal moments in the annals of local paddling history.
“I realized if I didn’t tell this story, it wasn’t going to get told,” Leverette says. “I also realized that I have no real lasting legacy. I’ve taught thousands of people how to paddle, and that stands for something. But once those people are dead, I’m dead. My hope is that when the book is out, folks will read it and gain an appreciation for the people in it and what they achieved. This will be my legacy.”
He writes that, “We will probably never know the full truth but we can be inspired by the tales of women and men who were there many years ago pioneering the way unaware of the importance and significance of what they were doing. This is a proud and interesting history that is filled with colorful characters doing amazing things. I can only hope that I am able to tell the story with some accuracy, a lot of humility and some humor—like the way they lived their lives.”
In addition to sharing his story with a wider audience through the book, Leverette continues to inspire the next generation of paddlers through his work at Warren Wilson College, where he goes by the title “Paddling-mentor-in-residence,” or, as he prefers to be called, “The Designated Old Fart.”
Will Leverette is available for readings, talks and multimedia presentations on the history of whitewater paddling in the region. He can be reached at .
[John Bowers is an Asheville writer and family man.]
