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I was over a some friends’ new loft the other day, admiring their new computer. Apparently the monitor, or “display” as people seem to be calling them, is made from solid aluminum, milled to shape. As my friends were talking about this, I was holding a can of pop in my hand. “Wouldn’t it be great,” I said, “If that monitor were made from recycled pop cans?”

This may seem like a big stretch. Like, Jess, you’re getting pretty flaky here – no way could companies use material from the garbage heap to make new things. But my thing is, it’s just got to be easier to reclaim material from our blue bins than it is to mine it. Even if we contaminate the material by mixing it with other stuff, surely it’s easier to purify that aluminum, or glass, or steel, or titanium, than mine it?!

I think computer companies are starting to see that not only are we creating an embarrassing amount of electronic waste these days, there’s valuable material in obsolete computers, monitors, cables, phones and other parts.

A year or so ago I had a chance to meet with the Director of the Office of Sustainability and Stewardship for Motorola USA, Bill Olson. In telling me about the Motorola Renew for a story in Homemakers, a phone made from recovered water bottles (the big ones used in office water coolers), Olson said that the key to using recycled material in new manufacturing is to find a really clean waste stream. Those big water bottles are ideal because there’s a collection system for them, and they’re all pretty much the same.

I’d love to see other manufacturers choose one item from the waste stream, something that would work well as part of their products. Companies could claim first rights to premium materials from blue box programs. What do you think, would it work?