E-cycling: dispose of your old electronics properly

If you saw the premiere episode of My Home 2.0 on TV, then you probably saw the little "How To" tip with Lloyd at the end.

If not, here's the skinny...

Computers and other "e-waste" make up 70 percent of the toxic waste in US landfills, including heavy metals like mercury and cadmium. (Brian's brand of "heavy metal" is cool...in the environment, not so much.)

E-waste comes from old cell phones, laptops, printers, scanners and other electronic gadgets, which can eventually leach toxic chemicals into the ground. But there is a solution.

You can take your old cell phones, rechargeable batteries, and other e-waste in to be recycled, also known as "e-cycling." Just take them to any Verizon Wireless retail store, and they'll recycle them for you.

Your e-waste will stay out of the landfill, and if your old cell phone is in good enough shape to be refurbished, you'll actually be doing a doubly-good deed -- Verizon's HopeLine program uses the proceeds from refurbished phones to assist victims of domestic violence.

HopeLine's efforts have kept over 200 tons of batteries and e-waste out of landfills since the program was started in 2001.

So when you upgrade your home to version 2.0, don't forget to do the right thing with your old gear.

Here's a great little piece from PSFK on ewaste and recycling of cell phones. Pretty interesting stuff!

http://www.psfk.com/2008/01/

Thanks for the link, Kerouacian -- that is a pretty interesting article. Particularly this part of "On Our Attitude Towards The New & Shiny":

“The mobile phone occupies a kind of glossy, scratch-free world,” he says. Whereas a pair of jeans gains character over time, a phone does no such thing. “As soon you purchase it, you can only watch it migrating further away from what it is you want — a glossy, scratch-free object.” You might leave the plastic film over the display for a few days, just so you can take it off later and “give yourself a second honeymoon with the phone,” he says. But ultimately everything that first attracted you to it only deteriorates.

Personally, my attitude towards technological items doesn't really jibe with this, though -- I've actually grown to like the "character" in my new-ish laptop, as the frequently-used E and N keys develop a worn look, and the spots occupied by my wrists take on kind of a sheen. (It also makes it easier to tell which one is mine when we're shooting the episodes, since almost everyone else on the production has the same laptop!)

I've never really been a hardcore gadget-head, though -- I almost always buy a new high-tech item for its usefulness, after it's been out for at least 6 months, and with the intention on keeping it until it flat-out doesn't work any more. My laptop and cell phone are pretty nice, but I really hope I don't have to replace them before at least 2011.

I just found a great tip for other avenue's of recycling... go to Earth911.org and it will tell you where the nearest recycling plant or places are near you!

Since my new Apartment does not have recycling (I KNOW, RIGHT?) I've opted to go green on my own and found a really cool recycling place about 15 minutes from my home because of this website.

Just a nice little tip - that hopefully will get folks to upgrade to recycle more than just the average Bottles, Newspaper and now with Guru Lloyd's computer/electronic tech savy tip!

Keep the Earth clean and go Green! (I know cheesy but hey, I'm a big cheese ball at times...) ;)

Thanks!

That looks like an excellent site, thanks for the link, Michele!

This page is pretty useful as well:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/

It's got some good tips in the blog comments on wiping your hard drive clean before you donate your old computer. (Very important to do, as it's often still possible to recover data from "erased" computers.)

Glad to hear you're recycling despite your apartment complex not having pickup service. Maybe if enough of your neighbors are interested you could take turns dropping recyclables off each week, or even convince the city to add your building as a stop for the recycling truck.