4
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2014
PAGE 7A
+
CAMPUS
Students have chance to recycle electronics
BRENDAN O'FARRELL news@kansan.com
The City of Lawrence and KU Recycling have teamed up to host an Electronic Recycling Event on Saturday, May 3 in order to keep unused, obsolete or old electronics off the curbs and away from landfills. The event is held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at KU Park and Ride's East Parking lot located at Clinton Parkway and Crestline Drive.
"Instead of students leaving their e-waste at the door as they leave for summer, we would rather them purge their electronic waste at the event," said Manny Abarca, the KU Recycling operations coordinator. "This way the electronics can be reused instead of ending up in a landfill."
Electronic equipment often contains lead, mercury, cadmium and other hazardous materials that can be released into the environment when the equipment is decomposing in a landfill. In significant amounts, these chemicals can then damage the local air and water quality. Recycling
Some of the items accepted for recycling are computers, monitors, printers, scanners, microwaves, televisions, audio and video equipment, cellphones and small appliances. However, hazardous wastes, including fluorescent light bulbs and large appliances are not accepted.
these materials cuts down on hazardous materials in landfills as well as the amount of new electronic components that will have to be produced.
"While just one person throwing away their electronics doesn't do too much, it's not long before it starts to add up."
MANNY ABARCA KU Recycling
"Businesses and individuals have continued to show up for these events and keep these materials out of our landfills," said Kathy Richardson, Lawrence's waste reduction and recycling operations supervisor. "I think that says a lot about the
While most of the items accepted are recycled free of charge, there is a fee for cathode ray tube televisions, the ones used before LCD televisions. There is a $15 fee for CRT televisions under 27 inches and a $35 fee for CRT televisions over 27 inches.
responsibility of the Lawrence community."
"Electronic waste is currently one of the most hazardous waste streams currently existing," said Abarca. "While just one person throwing away their electronics doesn't do too much, it's not long before it starts to add up."
Students and Lawrence residents can also recycle old computers or computer parts at Goodwill. However, unlike the Lawrence Recycling Event, Goodwill isn't responsible for destroying the hard drives of the computers, which causes a potential security risk if it's not destroyed beforehand.
The last Lawrence Recycling Event collected 34.4 tons of electronic equipment to be recycled, the most collected by the event vet.
Edited by Katie Gilbaugh
POLICY
Botched execution offers new evidence to attorneys
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. LOUIS - A bungled execution in Oklahoma provides death penalty opponents with a fresh, startling example of how lethal injections can go wrong. But the odds of successfully challenging the nation's main execution method will probably hinge on exactly what caused the apparent agony of inmate Clayton Lockett.
If the four-time convicted felon suffered because of a collapsed vein or improperly inserted IV, the legal landscape might not change much. If the drugs or the secrecy surrounding them played a role, defense attorneys for other prisoners could have powerful new evidence to press the Supreme Court to get involved, legal experts say.
A day after the execution went awry, some attorneys for death-row inmates began planning new appeals or updating existing cases based on events in Oklahoma. Many called for moratoriums and independent investigations.
"Every prison is saying, 'We have it under control, trust us," said Texas attorney Maurie Levin, who spent Wednesday preparing new briefs questioning that state's execution practices. "This just underscores in bold that we can't trust them, and prisons have to be accountable to the public and transparent in the method by which they carry out executions."
The 38-year-old Lockett, convicted of shooting a woman and watching as two accomplices buried her alive, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of three drugs was administered Tuesday. Three minutes later, he began breathing heavily, writhing, clenching his teeth
and straining to lift his head off the pillow. Authorities halted the execution, but Lockett died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after the process began.
An autopsy was conducted Wednesday to determine his cause of death, and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin called for an independent review of the state's execution protocols. The White House said the execution fell short of the humane standards required.
"This just underscores in bold that we can't trust them (prisons)..."
MAURIE LEVIN Texas attorney
Courts, including the Supreme Court, have been reluctant to halt executions over arguments that they violate an inmate's constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. In four rulings over the past 135 years, the Supreme Court has upheld the use of the firing squad (1879).
the electric chair (1890), the ability of a state to try to execute a condemned inmate by electrocution again after a first attempt failed (1947) and lethal injection (2008).
Many states — Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri among them - purchase execution drugs from lightly regulated compounding pharmacies and refuse to name the supplier, whether the drug has been tested, even who is part of the execution team.
The Constitution "does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions," Chief Justice John Roberts said in the court's 2008 decision upholding Kentucky's lethal injection system.
Still, a minority of the high court has shown some recent trepidation about the secrecy of the process used by many states.
In February, three justices — two short of the required five — said they would have blocked the execution of Michael Anthony Taylor in Missouri. A month later, four justices fell one vote short of blocking the execution of another Missouri inmate, Jeffrey Ferguson. They offered no explanation for their vote.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NATIONAL
Students from Los Osos High School are evacuated from the school as a brush fire burning in Day Creek near the Etiwanda Preserve in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., on Wednesday. Fire officials say winds gusting to 60 mph are pushing the flames through the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles although no homes are in immediate danger.
Southern California wildfire grows to 800 acres, forces evacuations
RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. A Southern California wildfire that forced the evacuation of at least 1,100 homes has grown to 800 acres.
Fire officials said Wednesday
Officials said earlier that 200 acres had been charred.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered due to the smoky conditions in parts of Rancho Cucamonga, a
There's no word on what sparked the blaze, but it comes in the midst of a heat wave that's created extreme fire danger.
winds gusting to 60 mph are pushing the flames through the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, although no homes are in immediate danger.
city of 165,000 people east of Los Angeles.
Several neighborhood and at least seven schools have been evacuated.
Associated Press
LECTURE FROM PAGE 3A
36 cases of trafficking in 2013, while nationally there were over 5,000 according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. The state is ahead of the curve in the fight against human trafficking, though, thanks to a bill signed into law last year that increased penalties and enforcement tools for prosecuting other people to profit off of them.
In her lecture, Basu outlined the major
"A huge mistake many people make is that they think trafficking only exists in areas with poverty, lack of education, or there is gender inequality," Basu said. "It happens at all levels, it happens in our own backwards."
"The lives of women lost is not always a priority," Basu said. "That is the attitude most government offices have."
challenges in solving global trafficking issues, including a lack of sensitivity among the judiciaries of many countries and inadequate law enforcement support, as well as patriarchal societies in countries where trafficking is rampant, like India.
Katelyn Cook, a senior from Topeka who attended Basu's lecture, said the speech and what she knows now about trafficking has made her see that the potential for crime can be higher than people realize. Even her trip to a country like Jamaica seems different in hindsight, she said.
aware of it, but I did notice that there were lots of posters for sex shows and call girls and that type of stuff, and I was really suspicious of that," Cook said. "Now looking back on it, I'm thinking that might have been human trafficking."
"I was younger, so I wasn't
Ansley Bender, a freshman from Salina who was at the lecture, said Basu's perspective was eye-opening for her as well.
"A lot of it I didn't realize before," Bender said. "Like how the politics and the unrest in countries can play into it, and confusion can add to it too. Also that Lawrence and Kansas can be a source site, that was really surprising."
- Edited by Austin Fisher
.