ewaste
I do not feel I do enough as far as recycling goes. My apartment does not have a convenient way to dispose of paper, plastic, or glass and so I tend to be lazy and just throw it away. So since I am moving in a month or so, I decided to do something good with all that electronic equipment I had stashed away. Phones, cameras, mp3 players, cords, power adapters, VCRs, you name it and I had it and it was time to declutter. Fortunately, there are ways to appropriately recycle this ewaste.
One good place I found was Recycling for Charities. They take wireless phones, PDAs, ipods and digital cameras and either sell them back to companies, through online auctions, donate them to other charities, or dispose of them properly meaning their parts are safely smelted to be used for other consumer or industrial products. This 501(c)(3) uses the money for further environmental protection. None of the ewaste is thrown back into landfills reducing dangers from lead, beryllium, arsenic, mercury, antimony, and cadmium. I work with this stuff so I know what lies in every transistor and contained in circuit boards sold to the average consumer. I feel better already.
But there is more. Office Depot has a program called Tech Recycling Service. While most store recycle ink jet cartridges, cell phones, and computers, Office Depot goes a step further and does most any kind of electronic equipment you can name. All that stuff I listed above which fits in a $5 prepurchased box, which covers the 100% recycled cardboard and the shipping, is sent to be stripped for its raw materials (glass, copper, aluminum, etc). The boxes are then recycled and the loop starts over again. I did not research enough to find out what happens to the left over materials but was unhappy to read that 50-80% of supposedly recycled ewaste is sent to China. I am going to trust Office Depot to do the correct thing but I am keeping an eye on them.
One good place I found was Recycling for Charities. They take wireless phones, PDAs, ipods and digital cameras and either sell them back to companies, through online auctions, donate them to other charities, or dispose of them properly meaning their parts are safely smelted to be used for other consumer or industrial products. This 501(c)(3) uses the money for further environmental protection. None of the ewaste is thrown back into landfills reducing dangers from lead, beryllium, arsenic, mercury, antimony, and cadmium. I work with this stuff so I know what lies in every transistor and contained in circuit boards sold to the average consumer. I feel better already.
But there is more. Office Depot has a program called Tech Recycling Service. While most store recycle ink jet cartridges, cell phones, and computers, Office Depot goes a step further and does most any kind of electronic equipment you can name. All that stuff I listed above which fits in a $5 prepurchased box, which covers the 100% recycled cardboard and the shipping, is sent to be stripped for its raw materials (glass, copper, aluminum, etc). The boxes are then recycled and the loop starts over again. I did not research enough to find out what happens to the left over materials but was unhappy to read that 50-80% of supposedly recycled ewaste is sent to China. I am going to trust Office Depot to do the correct thing but I am keeping an eye on them.
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