Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro) Circuit Board Coasters
Price: $12.99
TerraCycle's upcycled Circuit Board Coasters are environmentally responsible because they are made from actual circuit boards that would have otherwise ended up in landfills.
Every year millions of tons of e-waste are created and only a minuscule portion is recycled. Continuing the Upcycling Revolution, TerraCycle has begun reusing circuit boards to create new products.
As circuit boards contain various dangerous substances burying them in landfill is not, and really never has been, an option.
Still, every year millions of those do end up in landfill sites and nowadays more often than not in holes in the ground in some Third World country where the developed countries so conveniently though illegally ship this kind of waste.
Even the small amount of those circuit boards that are thus kept out of landfill by turning them into coasters such as these really does make a difference and the more of those that can be made and subsequently sold the more are yet kept out of landfills.
Each coaster is totally unique and made from sections of circuit board after components, so I assume, have been unsoldered from those boards.
The surface of the coasters is sealed with a plastic and the rim has a rubber edge.
The pack contains six coaster, all of a different pattern due to the nature of the material making them a great conversation piece at dinner parties and such like.
I understand that TerraCycle is also upcycling circuit boards into some other objects, such as photo frames and clocks. The more the better.
OK, I know, you could make your own unique coasters by using old CDs and DVDs, such as those that are given away at trade fairs with press info and such like or – though I don't know whether they still come that way – the “free” software CDs/DVDs that come as cover mounts with some computer magazines.
However, on the other hand you could – nay should – go and buy some of those made for TerraCycle and while the manufacturing is done in China the important thing to remember is that the waste material is kept out of landfills and such.
© 2009
<>