Recycling e-waste harnesses joy for people with intellectual disability

ABC NEWS (Australia)

We all know recycling e-waste is good for the environment. But for dozens of intellectually impaired people in Brisbane, it's given them a new lease on life. This story is all about turning heartbreak into joy one screwdriver at a time.

Transcript

00:00Pull, pull, pull! Come on! Yes!

00:05Joshua Lowndes is the reason this place exists. He spends hours breaking down old TVs, recycling

00:13bit by bit. It's a social enterprise called E-Waste Connection and was born from a desire

00:21by his mum Monique to find something meaningful for her disabled son to do.

00:26Someone for the life that could have been. I mean, you know, you don't expect to raise

00:31a child who is still so dependent on you at 24.

00:35Joshua was a healthy, happy baby. But that all changed when he started having seizures.

00:40So I started about two and then got really bad by the time he was five or six. That's

00:45when he had to have an operation to have some of his brain removed to try to stop the seizures.

00:51He is now non-verbal but loves pulling things apart, as do all the others who come to the

00:57workshops.

00:58It's my muscles, see? Good for muscles.

01:00There are three sites across Brisbane. Together they recycle or reuse 14,000 kilograms of

01:07goods a month.

01:09It's so satisfying seeing a smile on their face. Some people might be struggling to pull

01:13a screw out. Just to even finish a keyboard or take a few screws out is an accomplishment.

01:17This is a place of acceptance. Everybody who comes here is just a person. They know

01:22them by their name, not by their ability or lack of ability.

01:26They feel like they're part of a team and quite a few of them have then been able to

01:30go on and get paid employment because of being used to staying on task and signing in and

01:36having to wear their PPE.

01:38They take anything that plugs into a power point, uses a charger or is powered by a battery.

01:44And big TVs. You've got big TVs that work.

01:47Yeah, some work, some don't.

01:49It's pure joy to watch the teams work and play.

01:53All right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right.

01:55An enterprise with a heart.

01:57This is a great company to work for and this is a superb workforce here.

02:03And do you get up to any mischief?

02:04No, not at all.

02:07Volunteers are welcome.

Category

Transcript

Recommended