Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (March 13, 2002)
6________ WEdNEschy, M archi 15, 2002 A&E TllE ClACkAMAS P rînt Mural focuses on information overload Students express their concerns about technological pollution by painting a mural of Oregon’s fish. DAISY BAIN A&E Editor Art students, members of Phi Theta Kappa and several high school students recruited from Skills Day designed and painted a mural to represent a growing environmental problem in the United States, and specifically in our local river, the Willamette. “Most people don’t know how to discard of their equipment,” said Dave Anderson, adviser of Phi Theta Kappa and a painting instructor. An average family dis cards its computer every other year, he said. Since they don't know what to do with them, they end up in landfills. Harmful chemicals secrete into down stream waters, creating a tremen dous amount of waste and pollu tion in our rivers. Because of the overflow of technological waste the Willamette River now con tains, it has been declared a Su per Fund site. Eighty computer monitors screwed to the wall in the Pauling Art Gallery provide the perfect backdrop to the mural, titled “Don’t Drink the Downstream Water.” The mural deals issues of pollution due to discarded computers, which contain harm ful molecules such as chromium, cadmium, lead, mercury and PCB’s. Michael Amato, vice president of Phi Theta Kappa, the college’s honor society, initiated the idea to do something representing technology pollution. Anderson- and Amato brainstormed to come up with the idea that would fo cus attention on the poisoning of fish habitat by computer waste. Free Geek, a non-profit orga nization that recycles used tech nology and provides computers, education and access to the Internet, donated all the monitors for the group mural. It costs on average $5 a computer to remove all the harmful chemi cals properly. Free Geek will re cycle it for just a few hours of com munity service. The Community Technology Center and Thrift Store is located at 1731 SE 10th Avenue. More information is available about Free Geek on their website, www.Freegeek.org. “The idea was to introduce people to the issues,” said Amato. "They look at them (computers) as just throw-away.” “Millions and millions of moni tors are being discarded,” said Anderson. Left to right: Matt Lauzon, Cate Breman, Zach Anderson, Shelby Haggard and Nichole Trone work together to paint a mural of Oregon's fish life on the front of old computer monitors. PHOTOS BY MIKE POLLOCK / Clackamas Print Above: Nichole Trone puts the final touches on a marlin's eye at the top of the mural. After the art display is over, the wall of computer monitors will be taken apart and recycled. Above: Michael Amato squeezes under a ladder to put on some more detail. Below: Shelby Haggard traces out another fish with the help of a fish wildlife book. ■BBM middle of the school. The mural is meant to remind us about environmental issues at home in the Northwest and abroad.
