What to do with dead electronics? Image courtesy Mother Jones “Eco-Nundrums”

So, you want to deal with used electronics in an ecologically sensitive way.

Meet Randy Sarafan, a graduate of the Design Technology program at New York City’s Parsons School of Design, who has a fascination with technology, art, and all things green.

He has come up with new ways to deal with those dead PCs and laptops, old cell phones, broken printers, orphaned keyboards, irredeemable iPods, busted digital cameras, and tangles of cables and wires that we all accumulate.

A few of his solutions include the iMac terrarium, the laptop Digital Photo Frame, the Flat-Screen Ant Farm, the power strip Bird Feeder, and the Walkman Soap Dish, among others. 

Now a Virtual Fellow with the Free Art and Technology Lab, he has published a book called 62 Projects to Make With a Dead Computer, that tells novices how to safely take apart their dead electronics, with step-by-step instructions. Each dismantling/converting project is rated by difficulty and arranged by the use of the end result — as in stuff for the home, for your pet, for toys, and for fashion.

He writes that “Computer hacking takes on a whole new meaning when you’re going at it with a screwdriver and a hammer.”

—Dan Drollette, iSGTW