Photo journalist for the environment

by Annalisa Audino

You could almost say that the “Big Brother” has an ecological little brother: he’s called Raeeporter.it and he is the new site of citizen journalism promoted by the consortium of the most important producers of appliances, Ecodom, in collaboration with Legambiente, that involves all those people who want to be protagonists every day, in the daily paper and in direct, of the respect of the environment. The task is simple: bring with you a small photographic car and be witnesses to all the RAEEs (Refusals from Electric Equipments and Electronics: washers, refrigerators, ovens, pc.) abandoned on the sides of the roads or in the unauthorized dumps, and therefore not correctly disposed of, reporting them on the site in real time.

Being among the collaborators of the site is fast: it is necessary to compile a form on the site furnishing your own data, a brief description of the abandoned RAEE, the indication of the place (city, street, raced, square) and to upload a photo. The refusal made public, the managers of the site will worry him about signaling him/it to the competent corporate body both it the Commune or a society of urban hygiene, so that can handle the recovery and the transport to the nearer Center of Harvest.

"All the participants will receive a nice complimentary gadget - the organisers explain – It isn’t in fact a competition for prizes but rather a "mission" for sensitive press-photographer to aid in the safeguard of the environment and the guardianship of the resources of our planet. We have chosen a great event media to involve the greatest number of people and to put in action all those people who will want to input his/her own sensibility for the environment and above all his/her own eye of hawk. We have once however I specify, or rather up to December 2010: on the homepage a counter that will calculate in real time all the reached signalings and with a click it will be possible to connect to the map of the peninsula on which as the icons of the sent photos will appear - The three best releases, selected for technical quality and aesthetics by a jury of experts, you/they will also be published on the sites of Ecodom and Legambiente and on the magazine on line of the Consortium, Ecodomnews, of January-February 2011".

The initiative is praiseworthy indeed: every RAEE, even if in different percentages, it represents a "reservoir" of recyclable (iron, copper, aluminum and plastics) materials and to recycle not only means to safeguard the resources of the planet but also to save energy. "The energy used for producing first subjects, in fact -the experts explain - it is decidedly superior to that necessary to reuse and recycle some RAEEs. In the case of the refrigerators and the conditioners, then, the presence in the refrigerant circuits and in the insulating foams of ozone-injurious substances and with an elevated climate-altering power makes it necessary and important that they be treated according to proper procedures and methods to prevent the expansion of so-called “o-zone hole” and the aggravation of the greenhouse effect".