Faculty & Staff

Did you get a new iPad for the holidays? Or a new PC? Or maybe you’ve recently upgraded your office hardware.

If you’re wondering what to do with the old equipment, Norman Kleiman has the answer. For the past ten years, Dr. Kleiman, an associate research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, has been leading a CUMC-wide effort to collect unwanted computers and donate them for use by local and international non-profit groups--at the same time, preventing electronic waste from clogging our landfills.

The inspiration came ten years ago when the law firm where Dr. Kleiman’s wife works donated their old computers to Columbia’s Harkness Eye Institute. Dr. Kleiman took the idea to Columbia where countless working machines were getting thrown away. 

“Thousands of dollars of materials were being tossed,” explains Dr. Kleiman. “It’s environmentally and economically wasteful and it deprives people of resources that can be reused or repurposed.”

The beneficiaries of Dr. Kleiman’s efforts are worldwide. Once he has a roomful of machines, he coordinates with the National Cristina Foundation, which identifies charities, schools and public agencies that could use the computers for training and education purposes. So today, subsistence farmers in Guatemala are learning word-processing skills on cast-off Columbia computers, while an upstate New York group home uses donated machines to teach basic computer skills to disabled and cognitively impaired adults.

Dr. Norman Kleiman

Over the years, an informal network of co-conspirators like Kathleen Crowley (MPH ’91), Associate Vice President of Environmental Health and Safety at Columbia University and the Mailman School’s student club Students for Environmental Action have helped Dr. Kleiman to find storage space for donated machines, transport equipment and figure out how to securely wipe hard drives of all information, and mix and match components to restore machines in need of repair.

The end result is that upwards of 500 computers have been refurbished and donated to various charities.

When computers get tossed into the garbage, people wonder “where are these ending up?” notes Dr. Kleiman. “This program provides better accountability while extending the machine’s life cycle.” He added, “In addition, it substantially delays entry of potentially toxic materials into the wastestream, to a time in the not too distant future when better methods for extracting and re-processing heavy metals and other toxins can be implemented.”

The donations have not just been limited to computer equipment. When the Department of Environmental Science started work on remodeling their lab space, thousands of dollars worth of lab equipment were going to be discarded. Dr. Kleiman mentioned the used equipment to a principal of a Queens high school who immediately saw an opportunity to upgrade the school’s old science labs.

How to Donate

It doesn’t get easier than this: Just contact Dr. Kleiman at njk3@columbia.edu. 

So take a look around your office today or your home tonight and, while you’re at it, check your closets. Got a boxy old machine or monitor gathering dust there? Dr. Kleiman will be happy to take it off your hands. You’ll have room for the new, make charitable use of the old, and you may even gain some precious closet space.

January 20, 2011