Alston Grove

Old electronics, so-called “e-waste”, is increasingly becoming a problem. Lead, cadmium, mercury and other hazardous materials in electronic devices could leak from landfills into groundwater and endanger public health and the environment. A recent study found 2 to 3 pounds of lead on average in 18-inch TV sets and computer monitors. Some more scary statistics can be found here. Wired reports on some other aspects of the e-waste problem, like exposing prison workers to toxins when forcing them to recycle computers and shipping the junk to China because it’s ten times cheaper than recycling.

So, I had a bunch of broken electronics, and I didn’t want to send it to the landfill. Many of the manufacturers will recycle for you, but they charge a fee for shipping and handling each item. I found the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio website where they announce recycling drives around the city. In addition to household hazardous waste recycling events, they occassional do e-waste events. They made it really easy and it’s free. I just put my electronics in the trunk of my car and drove through a designated parking lot. They picked up my stuff and loaded it in a tractor trailer to transport it for proper recycling and disposal. Which probably means they shipped it to China — but I feel better thinking I tried to do the right thing (j/k).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2003 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.