Goodwill Industries Brings New Tech to Job Training

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Maggie Lange, GoLocalProv Contributor

At Goodwill Industries, on late Friday afternoons, you can find half a dozen workers taking apart old computers, sorting the parts into piles of motherboards, otherboards, plastics, copper, and aluminum. Everyone is bedecked in safety goggles and gloves.

This is Goodwill’s jobs-training program, which specializing in teaching skills that are viable in the current job market to people with disabilities (physical, mental, and economic). The skill that this group is learning on Friday—demanufacturing e-waste—will only become more valuable.

E-Waste

In the recycling world, e-waste stands for electronic waste. It’s basically anything with a plug: televisions, laptops, printers, monitors, and modems. De-manufacturing is how this electronic junk is taken apart, so that it can be reused, resold, or dismantled safely.

By the end of this ten-week class, the students will know how to take apart e-waste, sort pieces, price them, and ship them to companies that will use them to make new machinery. After the team of trainees have demanufactured and sorted the material, Goodwill ships the pieces out to places like Full Circle recycling in Johnston, and companies like Dell’s Reconnect.

Scuba and Software

Ed Balasco, the program supervisor, runs the class as efficiently as the machines that his trainees are taking apart. “This program is at least three years ahead of its time,” Balasco announces confidently. Ed used to work at a for-profit e-waste company, and when it came time to hire, the people that could de-manufacture were ahead of the pack.

The group works silently, and communicates to each other with a series of precise hand gestures that Balasco learned while scuba diving. “Yes,” “No,” and “Incorrect” are demonstrated quickly.

More Waste, More Jobs

Balasco says that this training will become increasingly valuable; as more e-waste builds, the more people will be needed who know how to demanufacture.

Digital junk generates by the truckload in the US; Smithsonian Magazine reported that as of 2005, Americans throw away over 100 million electronic devices every year. Goodwill goes through 12,000 – 15,000 pounds of this junk in a week.

This is the paradox of the virtual world; it has created a mess and mass of physical junk that is both expensive and dangerous to recycle. However, this paradox will provide more jobs to this newly trained group, and give them a growing place in the job market.