The Capital Area Corporate Recycling Council is offering students a special hurricane relief program that doubles as an environmental fix.The council is a nonprofit organization located in downtown Baton Rouge that promotes waste reduction and the use of recycled goods through educational programs.The council is offering refurbished computers to students who were directly affected by Hurricane Gustav. With a student ID, a desktop computer may be purchased for $200, and a laptop costs $250.Each system is complete with software, Windows XP, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Adobe systems and anti-spyware.Nancy Jo Craig, the council’s executive director, said the computers are available to students who need a computer for the beginning of the semester and students whose families were forced to spend money on other efforts in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.”We have another ongoing project for low-income Louisiana families,” Craig said. “We decided to try and expand it to help students.”The council has received a number of responses from LSU, Southern and Baton Rouge Community College students, Craig said, but nothing compared to the number of responses during the relief effort after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.For 18 months, the council collected 3,500 computers from around the country to refurbish and have available for those impacted by Katrina in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, but Craig said she doesn’t expect the Gustav relief project to be as large in its efforts. She said the program would end by December.The council’s warehouse serves as a drop-off center for businesses and individuals to donate their second-hand computers to prevent them from ending up in landfills. As technology advances, more electronics become obsolete, but electronic waste is a leading source of environmental hazards.”A lot of people are just upgrading,” Craig said. “There is another person who wants your old computer since they don’t have one.”The council aims to raise the hard drives to a national standard through a team of technicians upgrading computers and restoring equipment. Computers that won’t boot up are sent through a shredder and then recycled.”It’s both a community service, and it’s also an environmental thing to reuse your computer,” Craig said. “The energy produced to build a new computer is enough to run a computer for 10 years.”In addition to computers, the council also recycles digital cameras, MP3 players, XBoxes, Playstations and Wii.Students may drop off or pick up computers at the council’s warehouse located at 800 Saint Philip St., Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.—-Contact Leslie Presnall at [email protected]