Need a new gaming console? Just make one yourself with an old ventilator. Got an old payment terminal? Turn it into a camera.
These are just some of the creations of Argentina’s Cyber Dumpster Divers, a collective of ingenious tech aficionados who turn e-waste into new products.
“We experiment with technology by trying to recycle it and repurpose items that other people would simply throw away,” said Esteban Palladino, a musician who goes by the pseudonym Uctumi on social media.
Photo: AFP
“It’s a movement that has a charitable side, a techno-political side, and also a playful side,” he added.
Argentina produces an estimated 520,000 tonnes of electronic waste per year, making it fifth in the Americas after the US, Brazil, Mexico and Canada, a report released last year by the UN Research Institute for Social Development showed.
In 2022, the world generated a record 62 million tonnes, the report said.
Photo: AFP
The manifesto of the Cyber Dumpster Divers, who have dozens of members across Argentina, says that faced with “the immorality of equipment thrown in the trash, the ... diver rebels against the authority of the market.”
The waste pickers see themselves as revolutionaries at war with the tech “oligarchy.”
They call their provincial chapters cells, their manifesto is modeled on that of Karl Marx, and their posters feature a cyborg Che Guevara, who was born in Argentina.
Photo: AFP
The movement began in 2019 with hardware soup kitchens where people exchanged electronics parts.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it gained impetus because many people suddenly needed computers to study or work at home.
In stepped the recyclers.
They resurrected old machines from the trash heap, fitted them with free operating systems and donated them to people and organizations in need.
The collective’s third annual meeting in Buenos Aires included a workshop on reviving defunct smartphones.
Visitors also lined up to play the “Ventilastation,” a gaming console made from an industrial fan, and to learn how to run artificial intelligence applications locally on old computers.
“Old things work,” read a slogan on the screen.
Electronics engineer Juan Carrique traveled 470km from the central province of Santa Fe to present “roboticlaje” or robotic recycling.
Carrique goes into schools to teach children how to use e-waste to build temperature sensors or motor controls.
“It’s not the same to buy something ready-made as having to make it yourself, using pieces of trash,” he said.
The 47-year-old diabetic is a fierce critic of planned obsolescence — companies programming products to become out of date after a certain period.
He used a free app to make his blood sugar monitor compatible with his phone, extending the device’s manufacturer-specified lifespan.
It is about “reclaiming the right to recognize when things work or don’t work, not being told they work or don’t work,” he said.
While giving a second life to old electronic devices might seem the height of geekiness, the Cyber Dumpster Divers are wary of the impact of smartphones, particularly on Argentina’s youth.
“It’s this ecosystem that is destroying the social fabric, destroying the psyche of young people,” said Cristian Rojo, one of the recyclers.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS