Did you get a new PDA, mobile phone, laptop, iPod, or other fun gadget for Christmas? If you did, make sure to recycle your old unit. There’s toxic heavy metals and other stuff that can end up in our air and water if it’s just tossed in the garbage. Making it really simple to make sure this stuff doesn’t end up in landfills, or as e-waste in China is Staples’ Eco Easy campaign.
Some not-so-great facts about electronics recycling (or current lack thereof):
+ Only 10 to 15 percent of electronics are currently recycled
+ From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste increases by more than 25 percent.
+ An estimated 133,000 computers are discarded every day in the U.S.
+ There are 750 million cell phones and PDAs in America and that each year 1/3rd are thrown out in favor of new ones.
Staples recycles the following in all of their stores whether you bought the item there or not:
cell phones, chargers, computers and peripherals, CRT and LCD monitors, digital cameras, fax machines, inkjet and toner cartridges, keyboards,
mice, pagers, PDAs, printers, rechargeable batteries, and “all-in-ones”
Kudos to Staples for being the first national retailer to address the problem of e-waste and taking such a bold step to address it!
Before recycling, I suggest trying freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/). There is almost always somebody willing to take those electronics off of your hands. That ipod from 2003 that is old news to you might be a dream come true for somebody’s teenager. This way, that person does not go out and buy something new that will be waste in a few years, and your old electronics do not go to the landfill. I highly recommend it.
12/29/07 » 8:54 am »