green – CatManDu

Photo via – cat-man-du

After taking the Greener Gadget Design Competition by storm, The Recompute PC grabbed our attention. The sustainable design means less garbage goes into a landfill when the computer has reached the end of its lifecyle (which is just as long as other computers or longer). This computer is the only line that is assembled from off the shelf components, but all housed in a very sturdy cardboard housing.

With some concerns about the heat capacity issue that come with computers, designer Brenden Macaluso assured users with fact. Cardboard has a much higher heat resistance than many plastics including a higher ignition point as well. 258C – 427C to where as plastics begin to melt at only 120C, so rest assured that this computer is ready to roll, right out of the box. Worried about sturdiness? Don’t be. The guys at Recompute have actually stacked up to 800lbs on one of these cases with no problem. While it’s not completely waterproof (no computer really is), it has been assembled with a waterproof adhesive, so there is a certain degree of protection.

You can customize the Recompute PC in much of the same ways that you can any other computer. It comes standard with the following specs:

CPU	3.9 GHz Quad-Core Processor	USB 2 & 3	Support for both USB devices
Hard Drive	500 GB SATA2	Ports	PS2, VGA, DVI, HDMI
Video	ATI 8570D w/Radeon GPU	Power Supply	400W Dual Fan, 115/230 Volt compatible, hard off switch w/ U.S. power cable
RAM	4GB DDR3 1066	Operating System	Ubuntu 10.04 OS
Warranty	2 Year Standard	Software	Ubuntu Software Center

Recompute PC: Sustainable Cardboard Computer (cat-man-du Special Edition) – $899

Feel free to contact us using our contact form or at 806-350-8324 with any questions.

Watch the video review below.

I have a confession – I didn’t always care about the earth and the environment. In my 20’s I was of the opinion that I could do whatever I wanted to the environment and not make a significant impact. I am much older and wiser now and I know – just like a drop of water in a lake will create a ripple that will reach the other shore – everything I do has an impact.

When I first started cat-man-du nearly a decade ago we would only have around 10 computers come in for repair in a week. Of those, maybe one would be either abandoned or not worth repairing and we store it in a closet. After a few months would go by, we would take the computers and do what I learned to do with them from the computer company that I had work for in the past – we would do exactly what computer repair companies all over Texas do with eWaste every day – we tossed them in the dumpster. Even writing this now makes me cringe.

It wasn’t long before cat-man-du began to grow and we opened additional locations in Canyon, TX and Dumas, TX. Our 10 computers became 20, 30 and so on. It was (and still is) perfectly legal to dump all of the scrap PC’s and laptops into the dumpster. However, I had a change of heart and spirit. I knew if cat-man-du was to continue to grow we would be filling the local landfills with heavy metals like lead, cadmium, mercury and other toxic chemicals that pollute the soil and contaminate our groundwater. I made a decision that we would not only stop our computers that we built and sold – our eWaste – from going into the local landfills but we would also take in our competitors PCs, Macs and laptops.

Today all 3 cat-man-du locations have well over 100 PCs, servers, Macs, laptops and tablets come in for service every week. Many of these are too old to repair, not worth the cost to repair or they are abandoned by their owners. We are also left with hundreds of pounds of network cabling (and other cables/ wires), network switches, routers, mice, keyboards and more.

We are committed to operating off of a Zero Landfill policy with all of our eWaste. That means no piece or part of the technology that we sell and service (as well as many items that are brought in for us to dispose of) will go into our local landfills. We also recycle our cardboard and paper with KB Recycling of Amarillo. These are just a few ways that we make every day Earth Day at cat-man-du.

Please enjoy and share this video promoting Earth Day 2013. It was created for a school assembly promoting green initiatives – Happy Earth Day.