People are being asked to leave their unwanted computer monitors at the Sustainable Activity Centre in Wodonga, where they will be repaired and donated to Border refugee families.

An electronics engineer, nurse and one of Repair Cafe Albury-Wodonga’s volunteer battery-operated appliance repairers, East Albury’s Phil Shields founded the initiative.

He said a monitor was a portal to another world through education.

“A computer is a computer but you’ve got to have a good monitor as a window,” he said.

Mr Shields fixed five monitors and donated them to the Sanctuary Refugee Group in 2016.

“I went scouting for broken monitors and selected good-looking ones that I thought I’d have a good chance of fixing,” he said.

“They were mostly simple common fixes but the owners obviously decided to ditch them because of the repair cost.

“It took me about two hours per monitor; usually it was a simple fix like replacing the power supply.”

Australians are among the highest users of technology worldwide and e-waste is a growing problem.

Governments have introduced a computer and television recycling scheme, breaking them down into components that can be recycled for future use. 

“It’s better to try repairing before recycling but any monitors I can’t repair will be placed in the national television and computer recycling scheme at the Albury Waste Management Centre,” Mr Shields said.

During the mid-1970s Mr Shields was one of the first technicians employed at the Sanyo colour television factory in Wodonga. 

“As a hobby I then began repairing computer monitors when they first came into being,” he said. 

“It is just another form of technology to me; I have an internal drive to understand and master any electronic technology. 

“I have accumulated a great deal of knowledge over the years; it would be a waste to not use it for some good.”

People can leave unwanted computer monitors at the Sustainable Activity Centre, Wednesday to Friday, 10am until 5pm, and Saturday, 9am until noon.