Enjoy Your New Electronics And Recycle The Old Ones Properly

Planet Green:

Some of the big gifts this year were HDTVs, gaming consoles, GPS units and other gadgety items. But when new items enter the home, often that means old gadgets get the boot. Be sure to send them to a happy hunting ground by properly recycling them.

The Electronics TakeBack Coalition provides several excellent Consumer Guides that walk you through just how you go about finding a recycling facility for your old electronics. It can be worrisome, since you have to be careful your device is going to a responsible recycler and not someone who will ship it overseas to an unregulated and often highly toxic facility.

One of these great guides is A Consumer's Guide to Recycling Your Old TV. It explains your resources for responsible recycling, and even how you can get valuable coupons for your turned-in TV or converter box. Everything you need is summed up in this quick-glance guide. They also have a TV manufacturer report card that highlights where a manufacturer ranks in their recycling programs.

Read the whole story: Planet Green

Comments

[dgscol]

How about books? Will publishers and theuir revisionist authors take back their 7th editions when they publish an eighth? The actual content is about the same but this tactic to increase sales unnecessarily increases the number of unreadable and unsellable books out there.

Students can no longer sell back their unneeded books, because the stuff isd antiquated before their course is over. Either the elementary information is classes is advancing rapidly, ... or this is just a dumb method to increase sales? What a racket. How about keeping these in the same edition until some substantial revisions are necessary, so the books can be recycled instead?

One way to incline them in this direction, is to demand they take the books back, and recycle the paper. They should pay students to give them the books back.

[wagadog]

It's not that complicated. Bring old computers & computer accessories to Goodwill.

Specifically, Goodwill. They test and re-sell parts that they can, and responsibly recycle the rest. They construct whole computers from the parts that work, and sell them to nonprofits at a deep discount.

The net output of all this effort is trained people, less pollution, and inexpensive computers and parts to organizations and people who need them.

Next time you need just a little more memory for that old computer of yours...take out what's there, note how many slots you have and get a couple more sticks just like 'em.