InterConnection

With Wallingford’s solid waste transfer station such a hot topic, it’s worth taking a detour down Pacific by Gasworks to a little Wallingford-based business that’s doing its part to keep computers out of the dump and, as long as they’re at it, provide low-cost technology and skills to poor communities all over the world.

You may have seen them on your walk down the Burke, nestled back in a non-descript, warehouse-like building up on Pacific next to the “Home Made Wine” sign. What Interconnection does is simple and fabulous: they take donations of older computers and computer parts, refurbish them and ship them off to poor communities that lack the funds to provide modern tools to schoolchildren and adults.

Having recently made the switch from the world of Windows to a Mac-based existence (and, not coincidentally, from Microsoft employment to self-employment), Wallyhood happened to have an older Dell Optiplex that was overqualified for its job as as doorstop, so we took the opportunity, one recent Saturday, to trek down and have a look.

On entry, Brian greeted us with a puzzler: is the donation part of the “State Plan” or directly to Interconnections? It seems that Washington State recently passed a plan that would require computer and hardware manufacturers to pick up the tab for the disposal of the products they sold, product stewardship in the lingo.

Unfortunately (and perhaps in response to requests from said manufacturers, who might wish that people bought more new rather than used computers and monitors), the law came with its shoelaces tied together: if a piece of hardware is donated under the state plan, it must be completely functional at the time of donation, otherwise the recipient is forbidden from refurbishing and re-using it. Instead, it must be recycled for raw materials through a grinder. However, if hardware is donated outside of the state plan, companies like InterConnection can fix them or strip them for parts for repairing other machines.

Dumb.

Once we wound our way through that particular piece of legal nonsense, we availed ourselves of the good will our donation had earned (and perhaps our star status as hyperlocal media celebrity) and took a tour.

The facilities are a geek’s dream: separate stations for the dissembly of each type of device, a special “hard drive wiping station” to ensure the data privacy of donators, huge bins of spare parts tested or waiting to be tested and palates of functional computers, ready for shipping.

The gem of the tour, though, was the little map below, with pushpins indicating all the different communities to which computers had been shipped, dozens upon dozens of little red dots stretching from Central America, across central Africa, into the Pacific, up through India and Pakistan and Nepal and Iraq over into Eastern Europe.

Behind each tack, my imagination conjures a rickety shack set alongside a barrow rutted road. Inside, a small, dusty hand guides a mouse to click on that portal to another universe: Google, Wikipedia and, dare we hope, Wallyhood!

InterConnection is a non-profit that subsidizes its philanthrophy by selling refurbished computers and hardware retail, so even if you don’t have hardware to donate, stop down and shop, you’ll be doing some good. The prices they charge the destination communities are set in part by the success of the retail business, so better years here lead to cheaper computers there.

Visit the InterConnection web site for hours and directions.