E-waste, or electronics trash, is piling up faster than ever. Americans discarded 47 million computers in 2005, up from 20 million in 1998. The nation now dumps between 300 million and 400 million electronic items per year, according to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the TakeBack Coalition. Less than 20% of all electronic waste is recycled, according to the EPA. The rest ends up in landfills.
Old televisions, cell phones and computers can be recycled. Many of their components contain valuable copper, precious metals and plastics that can be recovered and used to make new products. Safe “e-cycling” also conserves natural resources, reduces pollution, and protects your health and the environment from toxic chemicals such as lead and mercury.
Electronic equipment manufacturers will be required to create a convenient system for the collection, handling, and recycling or reuse of discarded electronic waste now that the New York State Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act was signed into law and is scheduled to take effect in 2011. Beginning in 2015, it will be illegal for individuals to dispose of old computers with their trash. To help make electronic waste recycling convenient for New Yorkers, the Lower East Side Ecology Center is holding a series of events at many locations throughout New York City in April, including Recycling Day at the Sephardic Community Center on Sunday, April 10, from 10 am to 3:30 pm.
This spring, when you search for chametz in preparation for Passover, clean out your obsolete electronics too. Bring your old cell phones, computers, monitors, fax machines, printers, and televisions (but not household appliances like refrigerators or air conditioners) to the SCC.
“The Lower East Side Ecology Center is excited to be partnering with the Sephardic Community Center to bring an electronic waste recycling event to this community,” said Carolyn Kruse, Development Director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center. “We know how hard it can be to store e-waste and find a good way to recycle it, so we are excited that New York State now has a law that will make recycling opportunities, like those that our program provides, more common and easier to access.”
Since 2003 the Lower East Side Ecology Center has recycled more than 1.7 million pounds of electronic waste. In January alone, almost 4,000 households participated in their program, and the program collected 100 tons of material. Last year at its first recycling day, the SCC collected more than 2,500 lbs. of electronic waste.
At the e-waste collection this year, all discarded electronics will be brought to WeRecycle, a cutting-edge electronics recycling plant that is committed to the highest levels of environmental and social standards, as well as exceeding globally accepted best practices for recycling and management of used electronics. Hazardous components are never exported to developing countries or dumped in landfills.
Here’s how it works: when e-waste arrives at the facility, items are pre-sorted to sequester toxic materials and harvest valuable ones. Items are dismantled and sorted for components such as hard drives and processors that can be salvaged to be reused. Parts containing toxic materials such as batteries, toners and mercury are removed for further off-site processing. A shredder specifically engineered to process electronics guarantees that data is removed from computers, and motherboards and other circuitry are crushed and mined for gold and other precious metals. Conveyor belts are equipped with sensors that differentiate between substances such as metal and plastics, which are then sorted into separate streams.
Some people hold onto their old computers because of personal information still in the computer’s hard drive even when thought to have been deleted. You can clean out your computer yourself by purchasing disk cleaning software, which you can get for free at killdisk.com, dban.org and shareware.com. More information is available on how to clear data from your computer at epa.gov/plugin.
Or, to keep things simple, bring your old computer to Recycling Day at the SCC. WeRecycle uses cutting edge technology to guarantee data destruction and utilizes the same standards as the Department of Defense to ensure that all sectors of the hard drive are overwritten and data erased. For safety and environmental responsibility, Recycling Day is a great way to clear out your e-waste clutter, do your spring cleaning, and prepare for Passover.
For more information, contact Linda Eber at (718) 954-3154, or Linda@scclive.org. For questions about e-waste recycling and a full list of events, visit the Ecology Center at www.lesecologycenter.org or call 212-477-4022.
