Working for massive corporates, Cat Harding and Mardi Brown saw first hand the amount of electronic waste generated and got here up with the unlikely solution of turning the e-waste into meals. The friends both stopped their jobs and started the social corporation PonyUp for Good just over the years ago. “Often, this generation is turned around long before its life is up. What we are aiming to do is preserve the era out of the landfill, so we accumulate decommissioned era and provide statistics cleaning and a debugging service whilst required.
Harding says.
Melbourne-based is totally PonyUp for Good works with organizations nationally, including Australia Post, Telstra, and Nando’s, to gather their vintage generation. Once it’s been wiped clean up, PonyUp for Good resells the era with 50 percent of profits going to Second Bite, Australia’s biggest meals rescue charity. So far, the social business enterprise has collected 108,783 kilograms of e-waste with 42 according to cent of the technology reused, resulting in 250,000 food for Second Bite. The proposal for PonyUp for Good got here after Harding, 43, and Brown, forty-five, have become dissatisfied with their high flying company careers.
Having children also made friends reconsider what they have been doing with their lives.
“We desired to do something that had an environmental slant, and we played to our strengths with engagement with the big enterprise. We both hit a patch where we wanted to do something greater significant,” says Harding. The pair determined to tackle the burgeoning trouble of e-waste, which is growing up to three times quicker than general municipal waste throughout Australia. E-waste covers various objects along with televisions, desktops, laptops, printers, and cellular phones. It is estimated to be responsible for 70 consistent with a cent of the toxic chemicals, including lead, cadmium, and mercury, discovered in a landfill.
The Victorian authorities have dedicated themselves to banning e-waste from landfills in Victoria, whilst South Australia has had a full e-waste ban in the vicinity because 2013 and other governments are predicted to comply with the shape. Harding and Brown have funded PonyUp for Good themselves, installing round $10,000 each to begin up and at one stage putting in a record cleaning laboratory in Brown’s front room.
“It was very sunk or swam for us. We knew if we wanted to make a pass of it, we had to be 100 in line with a cent in. From the get cross, we worked five days every week unpaid. We were each fortunate to have very supportive husbands who understood what we had been trying to acquire. We had both given up our jobs,” Harding says.
Now it is hooked up PonyUp for Good generates earnings via partnerships with MRI E-Cycle Solutions and Aeon tech, and turnover closing financial yr become around $2 hundred,000.
“It’s still simply the 2 folks. However, we outsource a lot. We work at home or a shared area in the city to try to keep our overheads and fees as little as possible. The giant majority of the had offered remote places due to the fact there may be greater of a market there,” says Harding.
Businesses the use of PonyUp For Good are passionate about it is effect.
Andrew Sellick, head of environmental sustainability at Australia Post, says the use of the social company has diverted over 26,957 kilograms of e-waste from its Melbourne headquarters from the landfill.
