School during the summer holidays can be a quiet place. Students who have completed their IB Diploma Programme are on a deserved break while others are taking a break from school so as to return with fresh vigour. In the first week, there might be the lone teacher tidying up a classroom but throughout, all is quiet.
Not so at Scarborough College. With many building works to get on with, one might argue the summer break is the loudest. Builders have gutted the Sixth Form study centre, ready for an extension. Similarly, in the Sixth Form cafe and the library; where there is the constant racket of drilling and hammering. There is a makeover going on and just like last summer, students will return with excitement
A project that started some time is the WiFi overhaul and digital safety improvement work. This multi-year project will ensure faster WiFi, ease of use and a safer working environment. Eventually, the school will become ISO27001 certified. Earlier this year, Scarborough College became Cyber Essentials Certified. In addition to this project, the IT Department had to make a decision about the College’s IT waste. As a Google School, Scarborough College produces a lot of IT waste and it was vital that this disposed of safely and sustainably.
But why is it important to dispose of IT waste properly? Andy Holliday from Acorn Community Recycling, the College’s partner for IT waste disposal, tells us about its importance. Obviously, there is an environmental cost to IT waste. Raw materials such as zinc, copper, cobalt and gold can be valuable. More importantly, they can be hazardous to the environment. To a company like Scarborough College, there are more potential hazards. Any PC we get rid of can end up on Ebay – and so can the data it holds. This means there is the risk of a breach of data protection.
Andy’s company takes in, for instance, old PCs. The company wipes them and erases them before they are refurbished. Those of you who think wiping a disk is an easy job, think again. According to Andy, you can format a hard-drive 27 times and it can still contain data. Acorn uses Killdisk, which usually takes an entire working day to wipe a hard drive. Luckily, Andy built his own machine that can wipe a number of disks at one time. He announces proudly that once he is done with a hard drive, even the CIA could not get data off that drive.
The College’s IT Coordinator Mark Smith met Andy Holliday when faced with a similar problem while working for North Yorkshire County Council. Although Andy had always been into computers, he was actually a teacher of English by trade. While the two talked about safely disposing of IT waste, they were joined by Chris Holliday, Andy’s brother.
Chris had recently started a charity and Andy saw an opportunity to link the three together. As a council, North Yorkshire was keen about the idea of seeing IT waste go to charity. Andy saw a gap in the market, as there was no competent reputable charity that did this kind of work. The rest, as they say, is history. Before long, North Yorkshire council was linked to Acorn Community Care. When Mark moved across to Scarborough College, he took his connection to Andy and Chris’s charity along with him.
Acorn Community Care is a charity that provides space to adults with learning disabilities and men in particular. The charity recognises that this can be a largely forgotten group that lacks parental and educational support. More than 90% of the charity’s users are men with disabilities that range from extreme autism to asperger’s.
Funded primarily by IT waste, The charity owns a farm and houses several workshops in buildings. In addition to a number of greenhouses, the workshops range from metal work, woodwork, horseshoe art and – of course – IT waste. In the farm, you can find alpacas, goats, horses and other animals. While some people live on the farm, many of the people visit on a daily basis and transport is provided by the charity. The eight-acre farm can be visited by appointment.
Andy says the standard of care currently exceeds the norm but he is keen to do more. He would like to see improvements to their homes and better adaption to physical disabilities, which includes more specialised transport. He would also like to explore the possibility of more workshops. Only 20% of the available spaces is currently used and the charity would love to be able to fund overseas trips.
If you are interested in finding out more about Acorn Community Care, please contact Andy at Acorn Community Care
