OREGON - City Collects Electronics in Effort to Keep Items From Dumps (Emerging Issue)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

[FAIR USE FOR EDUCTION AND RESEARCH ONLY]

20000320

City collects electronics in effort to keep items from dumps

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The bed of Jan Tullis' pickup was crammed with computer monitors, hard drives and other computer parts that either no longer function or cannot run today's software. ``A lot of this was stored in the computer lab and hallway,'' said Tullis, an elementary school technology coordinator. ``It's been sitting around for years. So I was really happy to hear about this.''

Tullis dropped the old equipment off at Portland's first-ever electronics collection day, where more than five tons of computer monitors, printers, central processing units, VCRs, fax machines, telephones and answering machines were turned in Saturday.

Cities and states nationwide are scrambling to keep from being buried under technology's built-in obsolescence.

One estimate suggests the nation will need to recycle or get rid of more than 200 million personal computers within the next five years. That count doesn't include the fax machines, document scanners and CD players sure to be outdated by 2005.

``This is clearly an emerging issue,'' said Bruce Walker, manager of the city of Portland's residential solid waste and recycling program. ``Whether it's obsolete computers, stereos or VCRs, there's no real easy and accessible recycling solution.''

Environmental regulators want to keep high-tech junk from ending up in landfills. Aside from the bulk, electronic equipment contains materials that could contaminate soil, air and water.

For example, cathode ray tubes inside television sets and computer monitors contain lead, which is known to cause brain and kidney problems, especially in children. Batteries and other components contain cadmium, which is also toxic. Mercury commonly was used in older electronic equipment.

``Modern landfills are well-engineered and safely constructed,'' Walker said. ``But at some point in the future there would be a concern with any material, particularly lead.''

The equipment collected Saturday will be disassembled and separated by Quantum Resource Recovery, a Beaverton company.

As much as 95 percent will be saved from the landfill, said Mike Wenzinger, Quantum's owner. He'll sell the separated materials to customers who will extract precious metals, such as gold and silver. Other customers will recycle the plastics into everything from toys to tarps and even new computers.

The number of recycling companies willing to deal with electronics is still relatively small. Yet the amount of material that must be handled is growing exponentially.

A National Safety Council study found that more than 20 million personal computers in the United States became obsolete in 1998. Of those, about 14 percent were resold, donated to schools and charities, or disassembled and the parts recycled.

The council believes much of the rest of the 86 percent are being stored in warehouses, basements and attics.

As of April 1, Massachusetts will become the first state to ban televisions and computer monitors from landfills or incinerator plants. State environmental regulators have arranged instead for residents to take those items to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, where the state will pay electronics recyclers to retrieve nonfunctioning machines.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/Wire/N0305OR--ComputerRecycling.html

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 20, 2000

Answers

Dee:

Great story.

I remember getting ready to move from California to DC a few years ago. I thought California was very progressive when it came to recycling and toxic waste. Boy, was I wrong. I had some old cans of paint and insecticides in my garage and wanted to dispose of them properly. I called everyone I could think of from my local trash collection company to the Air Quality Board. No one could give me a safe option for disposing of my stuff before I moved.

It's good to hear of some good solutions. Also - here in Fairfax County, the dump has various assorted stations for leaving toxic or recycling stuff. They make it easy to be a good citizen.

When I worked for a small college, we would leave old computer equipment out in the hallways. It disappeared little by little...

-- Sally Strackbein (sally@y2kkitchen.com), March 20, 2000.


Hi Sally,

Thank you for your comments on this story.

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 20, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ