Community Perspective
Electronics recycling weekend
Published Friday, October 3, 2008
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Stumble It!What do you do with that old computer, television or video player now that you have upgraded your system? Don’t dump it! An average desktop computer contains 4 pounds of lead, not to mention cadmium, mercury and other hazardous materials. With all the empowerment and ease computers bring, they also bring more than 1,000 chemicals that put hazardous heavy metals into our landfills.
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a nonprofit organization engaged in environmental and health research, estimates there are 500 million obsolete computers in the United States. Roughly 10 percent are recycled properly. After several decades of evolving technology and dozens of upgrades, many may have given little thought to what happened to their first green-screen Apple computer from the early ‘90s. It, like many electronics, went from the garage to a yard sale to another garage to finally ... the dump.
Electronic devices contain a number of different metals — gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, copper, tin, lead, brass and zinc — that can be extracted and recovered in the recycling process. We can start mining our obsolete equipment for metals by sending equipment to responsible recycling companies.
A reminder: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 4 billion pounds of e-waste was discarded in the United States in 2005, accounting for between 2 percent and 4 percent of the municipal solid waste stream. About 87.5 percent of it was incinerated or dumped in landfills; approximately 12.5 percent of the total was recycled. We can do better.
Here is your chance to recycle responsibly: Interior Alaska Green Star is hosting an Electronic Waste Recycling Event on Saturday for households and Monday for businesses and households. You’ll find us at the Westmark Hotel back parking lot, 813 Noble Street, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., both days.
We have selected Total Reclaim, Inc. as our recycling company because of its track record of recycling responsibly and their commitment to the “Electronics Recycler’s Pledge of True Stewardship.”
Many of you will be surprised there is a fee to be paid for recycling — $12 for a laptop and $8 for a scanner — although keyboards are free and so are cell phones. Electronics are far more complex to recycle than single=element items such as aluminum cans or paper; therefore, fees are needed to cover the recycling process, sorting and shipping. Consider the cost an investment in a healthy future. Nonprofit organizations may qualify for a partial rebate of fees; please contact IAGS at 452-4152.
The organization consists of volunteers from our community. We are a nonprofit organization. You may be one of those volunteers; if not, here is your chance. You could sign up to help and exercise your expertise (we need cashiers, electronics loaders, sorters, checkers, traffic controllers, disk destroyers and hard drive dismantlers). Phone Darcie at 978-9889.
Do you have an analog television? You probably already know TV stations will stop broadcasting in analog and switch to 100 percent digital at midnight on Feb. 17. Consider purchasing a converter box and use the coupon program to offset the cost (www.dtv2009.gov). It’s an easy hook up. Maybe you’ve decided which analog televisions you will keep (hook up a converter box) and which you will discard. Please consider recycling those old analog televisions through our e-waste event, this fall or next spring, but don’t throw them in the landfill.
Recycling cell phones costs nothing, and there are many sites in Fairbanks that accept used cell phones year round (your service provider, for one), yet only 10 percent of cell phones are recycled. Precious metals, copper and plastics, all of which require energy to extract and manufacture, can be recycled to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep valuable material out of landfills and incinerators. Recycling a million cell phones is equal to taking 1,368 cars off the road for a year. Please help us get the word out about recycling cell phones.
We want to see you there at the Westmark Hotel on Saturday and Monday. Whether you are a volunteer or are recycling your old, broken or obsolete electronics, you’ll be welcome.
Carol Varner has been a volunteer board member for Interior Alaska Green Star for nine years.
Community Discussion
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Hmmm, so I am not sure I understand correctly. Is this a fee-based collection program, or just a collection program? If it is fee-based, then please clarify the costs, as those listed are limited and vague.
I think it is a rather difficult time of year to convince people to venture out and then pay to give you their possessions. But, maybe that is just my cynical side getting the best of me. Again.
This program is a fee-based collection program. The fees go towards paying American Laborers to safely recycle the electronics. IAGS benefits very little from the fees paid.
The costs can be found on our website here, http://www.iagreenstar.org/e-recycling.p....
The benefit of having your electronics recycled, as opposed to taking them to the landfill, is that the toxins from the electronics like lead and mercury, are collected safely and are not leeched into the ground. Also, electronics contain a number of recyclable materials including plastic, copper, and gold (in very small quantities) which can be recycled into new materials preventing an unnecessary waste of resources.
Kristen - IAGS Board of Directors
Thanks for the reply, Kristen.
Still, for a family on a tight budget, those are rather steep fees just to let someone else profit off them. I have a tote full of circuit boards I am less and less likely to reuse, but I think they will just have to stay put for now.
Good luck with the effort!
kritho
American Laborers? Is that a group who will recycle these products here in America, or is it the 3rd party group that basically takes the e-waste from you? I have heard that many of these recycling efforts ultimately ship their e-waste to China and they dump it in their own landfills, ... so how is that any different?
if it costs me money to throw away my junk, then no thanks.
Ponderous: Recycling businesses are not in business to spend money to ship trash around the world. They are in business to extract valuable resources from used-up goods, in this case, precious and semi-precious metals from electronic components.
The recycled components are broken down, the elements of value and/or danger (lead, cadmium) removed, and the balance either scrapped itself or recycled further. No-one ships this junk to China.
ANY CHANCE THOSE COSTS COULD SECRETLY BE HIDDEN (INCLUDED IN THE ORIGINAL COST) OF THE PRODUCT AND PASSED ON THE CONSUMER AT THAT TIME? I FOR ONE AM NOT GOING TO PAY SOMEONE TO TAKE MY USED ITEMS.
SEEMS IF YOU REALLY WANT PEOPLE TO DO GOOD, (RECYCLE) YOU EITHER DO IT FOR FREE OR PAY SOMEONE.
OK- SO I'M NOT A BIG RECYLCER(?) BUT HEY- I'M NOT PAYING TO DO IT.
PEACE
Freedom in America is not doing what you can get a way with ,,but doing what you ought to do ..the right thing!
recycle!
What are the 13 or so sponsors paying for?
Any of it going to pay for the actual recycling or just for tents, food, and happy music?
Any chance at all that they could underwrite this project. I'm not alone when I say I won't PAY to recycle.
Peace
Isn't Walmart reclying electronics too? Do they have a fee?
This event was quite a success!
To answer a couple questions:
Fees cover the costs of an American company dismantling our computers in America, by American workers. The electronics are not shipped off to other countries where they can be processed in less safe ways.
The money from the sponsors primarily went toward paying for advertising for the event and/or were in-kind donations. The acutal space we held the event in was donated by the Westmark and food was donated by Safeway and Fred Meyers. So no, the sponsor money did not go towards feeding our great volunteers, paying for rental space, and we didn't have any music but we'll think about it for next year ;-)
Walmart accepts plastic, paper, and cans, they do not recycle electronics.
If you're interested in recycling (everything, not just electronics) in Fairbanks, check out our recycling options matrix http://www.iagreenstar.org/Recycling_Opt...
Kristen - IAGS Board of Directors
I said this on the other article and I state it here....you should pursue having the Borough donate some money to soften the fees that you charge since it keeps lot of useless items out of their dump.
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