Good Point Ideas Blog

The “Good Point” blog is about “Ethical Electronics Exports, Fair Trade Recycling”. Composed by Robin Ingenthron, founder of Good Point Recycling and the WR3A non-profit, the site discloses the company’s position, policies, as well as the personal opinions of its founder. It has become an important source of inside information on the “e-waste recycling” business for academic research into recycling policy. The website invites dialogue, promotes discourse, and twitters recycling policy forward, using humor, music, and mind-bending analogies to convey important issues.

The recycling industry has been accused of misleading consumers. Ingenthron hopes that a “warts and all” blog which fully discloses the company’s opinions and practices will temper cynicism about greenwashing. Frequently cited by the recycling trade press, the Vermont blog has been labeled “bracingly honest”, a “creative approach”, and a “refreshing” break from recycling dogmas.

To add our blog to your own RSS Feeds, paste this link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/GQskD

As a passionate defender of “fair trade”, Ingenthron writes, “Our company’s first motto was that we are who we say we are, and we do what we say we do, which is kind of a sad commentary on the e-waste recycling industry.” He hopes that in the future, people can once again take that for granted.

Meanwhile, a growing number of academics, entrepreneurs, and government recycling coordinators use the “search” function on the blog to mine answers to specific questions. They find external links to film of operations overseas, data on the company’s Mexico operations, export policies, its domestic recycling capacity, hard drive data management, and more. The Good Point blog offers insights into positions staked out by EPA, ISRI, NRC, NGOs, and International institutions on mining, disposal, and recycling alternatives. Perhaps our most important followers are overseas.

Before creating American Retroworks Inc. and WR3A.org, Robin Ingenthron was Recycling Director at Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. His division implemented the first CRT “waste ban” regulations, the first market research on CRT reuse and recycling, and the first state RFP contract for municipal “ewaste” recycling (a state contract is enforceable by the Attorney General, giving it more teeth than a “Pledge” or “Certification”).

Ingenthron has a BA in International Relations from Carleton College, and spent a semester at the UN in Geneva. With the US Peace Corps, he trained in Congo and taught school in Cameroon. He was hired by Peace Corps to stay in country as a “cross cultural trainer” before returning for an MBA Peace Corps scholarship at Boston University. He worked as a consultant for operating systems software industry, and as a co-director of two recycling non-profit organizations.

Good Point Recycling is a member of Vermont Businesses For Social Responsibility, Association of Vermont Recyclers, and the World Reuse, Repair and Recycling Association [WR3A] an organization which establishes “Fair Trade” standards for surplus electronics exports, ensuring no “toxics along for the ride”.