Electronic Waste

Here's a question for you ... Jeopardy What weighs 200 million tons? The answer: the amount of electronic waste entering our landfills every year. Computers, monitors, cell phones, DVD players, copiers, televisions ... you get the picture.

Most, if not all of these electronic waste contain hazardous chemicals such as mercury, lead and chromium which eventually leaching into our groundwater from landfills or be emitted into the air from incinerators cause a growing number of environmental and health crisis. This problem is fueled by rapid growth of new technology that makes electronic products obsolete before ending their normal life cycle and the fact that most people do not know how to eliminate these types of products. In fact, most do not know that these products can be recycled and reused.

But discarded electronics can be disposed of properly or recycled, and it is easier than most people think. Tons of companies have programs that allow you to donate used electronics for churches and schools, and other companies will recycle usable components, raw materials and materials such as plastic, glass and aluminum. Many cities also collect e-waste as part of their hazardous waste pickup programs.

You can even take advantage of tax breaks when you donate your unwanted electronics. The 21st Century Act for Private Technology Investment classes enables large companies to donate used equipment to public and private schools for tax breaks and grants to nonprofit organizations may be delisted. You need to check with each nonprofit organization with specific documentation for your tax return.

The environmental benefit or donate used electronics recycling goes beyond the mere holding of hazardous chemicals in our landfills, it also helps conserve our precious natural resources. It takes about 530 kilograms of fossil fuels, 50kg of chemicals and 416 gallons of water to produce a desktop computer. components of electronic waste recycling can help preserve these resources and may also help to use less energy than producing new components. Extraction of aluminum, for example, uses 20 times the amount of energy it takes to recycle the same amount of aluminum from electronic components. Last year alone, the electronics recyclers recovered more than 100 million pounds of materials such as aluminum, steel, glass and plastic, which has been reused.

Now that we know the benefits of e-bike we are going to understand how to find an e-cycler in your area. You can start with the Electronic Industries Alliance . This site has an easy to use map that allows you to search for e-cycling by the state and offers many other useful links to guide you through the process. You can also check with your municipality to see if it provides e-cycling as part of its hazardous waste programs or Goodwill Industries . There are several other organizations, you can verify that the training programs that offer students and teach individuals how to refurbish used electronic products that are then donated to local schools:

Students use technology recycling (belt)

Learning and Information Networking for Community via Technology (LINCT)

Organization for the Development of reuse (REDO)

Even Sam's Club has an interesting program that works in cooperation with companies from New Customer Service, Inc. Members of the organization who want to recycle computers, LCD monitors, printers, camcorders, digital cameras and MP3 players, may connect to the program website and print a free shipping label for products sent again.