Substation 33
The ultimate recycling project
by Nance Haxton
The shambolic appearance of Substation 33 is deceiving, as you walk around an open shed with piles of wires and discarded laptops and batteries. But this humble group is bringing order to the chaos — repurposing this electronic waste into a range of innovative products, as well as transforming the lives of many of the people who take part.
Nance Haxton meets some of the community members who contribute to this unique social enterprise.
“It’s … been operating since January 2015 and basically we started as an electronic waste recycling business. In that period of time we’ve collected disassembled, and sorted over half a million kilograms of electronic waste. And less than five per cent of that ends up as landfill” says Social Enterprise Manager, Tony Sharp.
“It’s the fastest growing source of landfill in this country. And we are the highest consumers of electronic waste in the world. We even beat the United States of America”.
Australia likes electronics but we don’t know what to do with it at the end of it. “Exactly and we like to turn it over really quickly and we don’t have an end game for it. Some basic stats the federal government tell us under a national stewardship arrangement that we are decommissioning 40 per cent of our electronic waste, when in actual fact we are only disassembling 40 per cent of our televisions and computers, and that’s only half the electronic waste being made in this country”.
“Electric kettles and jugs, DVD recorders, that thing you’ve got in your hand (audio recorder). That’s the sort of stuff that ends up in landfill. Here at Substation 33 it’s unique because we collect everything. We’ve got a couple of vehicles on the road full time. That’s the nuts and bolts of the business. We’re also trying to reduce consumption. Landfill is our last resort.
Substation 33 shows in a very practical way, how the public sector can connect innovative organisations to improve the quality of society. And it’s turned Tony Sharp’s dream into reality — combining his great passions of recycling electronic waste — with giving marginalised people valuable work experience.
“It’s a game changer for communications is what we’ve noticed. We give a very formal workplace safety induction, and then we let them go for it. You might know nothing about e-waste when you first got here but you’re sitting beside someone who does, and it starts conversation and that’s what it’s all about. We’re trying to develop workplace skills and workplace behaviours. If you cannot communicate you cannot have good workplace behaviour”.
So, who are the people at Substation 33?
Our business model is that we have paid employees and supervisors, and below that everybody else is here for their own purpose. That could be a person on work for the dole. It could be a person with a disability. It could be a school group that’s come in to do some work. It could be an altruistic volunteer. It could be someone from the streets trying to get away from it. There’s the volunteer that wants to give back to the business and there’s the volunteer that wants to get something out of this for themselves. They’re two distinct sub-groups.
And what you’re looking at now is electronic printers, made from electronic waste. These are going to high schools. “Yep going to high schools so these go in a kit form to high schools and the schools are with support of some of our staff the teachers are building these 3D printers”. We’re manufacturing now bits and pieces of more 3D printers. They’re printing some battery modules and some bits and pieces.
“Just buzzing away … and this is all stuff that would have ended up in the dump?
Correct yep. Our by-cost for materials to build these things is $63” says Tony.
“This is a laptop battery. These have done probably four or five years in a laptop. One battery has failed out of 10 or 12. We then disassemble them. We put them into our charging ports and there’s a testing regime that they go through to make sure they are usable. We then do lots of things with them we turn them into electric bikes, battery packs for electric drills that are broken. There’s nothing wrong with it the electric drill is perfectly fine. That saves that drill going to the dump as well. They can run all week on one charge. And it also makes the place interesting for people who are marginalised from mainstream employment. To experience something a little bit different.”
Substation 33 has mobilised around one of the great burdens of this century. What to do with the growing toxic legacy of electronic waste? It has invented and produced an automated flood signage system that could now be rolled out to hundreds of crossing in the Logan region, and potentially save lives. Every sign is built completely from rubbish that would have otherwise ended up as landfill.
The automated flood signage system
The automated flood signage is facilitated by a combined agreement with Logan City Council, Griffith University and Substation 33. Council approached us with a concept about flooded roads. So they came to us with a concept and some ideas, they asked us to work on it. And this is what happens. There’s a float which sits on the side of a creek. When it hits the road level and the floods activated by the water and then this happens road flooded comes up very quickly. What we’ve been able to achieve over time is that it not only flashes up but it sends an sms and an email and we can load it onto a mapping system. It’s run by a solar panel and recycled laptop batteries. With these lithium batteries you get ten times the bang for your buck. We believe that we will be able to get nine or ten years out of these laptop batteries where they’ve only had five years life in a laptop.”
“And it also means you don’t have to have a person out there putting themselves at risk. That’s right. So this is our radio module. It transmits it back and all made right here in Logan.” The flood signs are a great example of local organisations pooling their resources to solve local problems.
Community
A range of paid workers and volunteers have been drawn together across traditional boundaries, through partnerships with Logan City Council and Griffith University.
Crystal is one of the people tinkering here, who has kept coming back to contribute for eight months.
She’s learned skills she never imagined and also working as part of a team. “I started off on the tables and worked my way up — it’s a great environment with awesome people.”
“The floods signs all work which is great and it’s helping people not go through flooded waters which is great.”
And Substation 33 is also partnering with other social enterprises as a hub of innovation in Logan. One of these is Amplfy — which recycles ammunition boxes into solar powered waterproof portable speakers with bluetooth capability. Amplfy founder Bradley Clair says Substation 33 has provided the perfect partnership.
“It’s made using recycled laptop batteries so should last for 35–40 years, recycled speakers, remote controls, USB. And looks pretty indestructible.”
“Yeah it’s pretty tough as well. But we also sell these online as well. So we sell them as a D.I.Y. kit so you can do it yourself. We’re trying to get people interested in it to do it for themselves.”
Substation 33 — what do you think of what it’s achieving? “It’s incredible. There’s not many places around here doing something similar to what they’re doing”, Dan says. “And I think it’s really good for people who haven’t had anything to do with 3D printers, or electronics, or speakers to have the opportunity to do that here. There’s nowhere else you can do it other than spending thousands of dollars on a degree in electrical engineering.”
For Dan, Substation 33 has given him a sense of purpose he never found at school. “You built this one?” All by myself. Pretty cool isn’t it?
“Did you know much about electronics before you came here?”, “ No. Experimentation.”
“Sounds like you’re doing some great things here Dan.” “Yeah plus you socialise with others. Better than school.”
Tony Sharp proudly oversees the work being done at Substation 33, and hopes it can be replicated elsewhere.
“We’ve had 40 employment outcomes in the past seven or eight months. That’s fantastic. Yeah it’s good. Dare I say it’s almost the ultimate recycling isn’t it because I think for the people here there weren’t many options. It’s a bit of a cliché think but yeah probably recycling lives as well as electronics. You can’t get the vibe from the podcast, but it’s a place of belonging.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NANCE HAXTON
Nance Haxton has proven her excellent reporting track record over more than 20 years — winning Australian journalism’s most prestigious honour — a Walkley Award — for the second time in 2012.
Nance writes, presents and produces reports for ABC’s Radio’s flagship radio current affairs programs AM, PM and The World Today. Involves live crosses, breaking news, long form and investigative work. She is also Journalist-In-Residence at Griffith University.
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