Did you get some new gadgets this holiday season and are wondering what to do with the older ones you no longer need? By now we all know that we need to properly recycle our old electronic devices to help prevent mercury, lead, and other harmful chemicals from being released into the environment. It is just the responsible thing to do. But now that the New York State Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act is in effect, leaving your old computer by the curb is no longer an option. The law will help to ensure that there are more places for you to conveniently drop off your electronics. So where can you take those items now? Here are some suggestions:
- Best Buy will accept many items including TV’s (tube TV’s must be less than 32”), DVD players, computer monitors, audio and video cables and cell phones. There is a $10 charge for CRT monitors and tube TV’s, but that cost is offset by a $10 gift card. They will accept up to three items per household per day. (See the details here.)
- Goodwill has partnered with Dell to provide an easy way for you to recycle your computer equipment of any brand. All you have to do is take your items to any Goodwill drop-off center, and you can get a receipt for your tax purposes too. (Get the details here.)
- Office Depot and Staples both offer programs as well. You can purchase small ($5), medium ($10), and large ($15) boxes from Office Depot, fill them up with as many items as you can fit, and drop them off to the store. Staples will accept many of the smaller items for free and will accept larger items for a $10 fee.
- Here in the state of New York, all wireless telephone service providers must accept cell phones for recycling, so this is an easy one. Here at the University, you can also recycle cell phones and small hand-held electronics through our ink cartridge recycling program. Simply mail them to: University Mail Services, PO Box 270001. There are also a few drop-off locations. See the webpage for details and hang a poster to help spread the word of this program.
- If you are a UR employee or student, you have the additional option of participating in our annual electronics recycling collection event for your personal equipment too. Mark your calendar for the last Friday of October each year and bring in your old gear from home. In the past three years, nearly 85,000 pounds of material has been collected with almost 35,000 pounds collected this past October. (See article for details.)
- The EPA offers a cluster of search engines to help you find recyclers close to you. You can enter in your zip code for most of them and a local list will come up.
- What’s better than recycling? Reuse! One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. If your electronics are still in good condition you could even earn a few dollars by selling them on eBay or Craigslist.
As for electronics that are owned by the University, recycling is even easier. All you have to do is call the customer service center at 273-4567 to schedule a pick-up. The University currently contracts with Sunnking located in Brockport to recycle all of our electronics. But please try to consolidate equipment whenever possible to keep the program cost effective and sustainable.
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Thanks for sharing the nice post, I like the ideas, recycling of electronic goods is the best way to make our environment go green. After reading it I liked the way to write on such a topic. It is not so easy to write in this impressive way. Thanks again!
Although I am late to know this information, but this information is useful. And adding new knowledge for me. Thank you for sharing. Always success.
I didn’t know that Staples took some old appliances. I always think of them as the “School supply store” and that’s about it
Computers and other data storage devices contain personal and sensitive information from bank data to tax records. Before donating your computer, leaving it outside for the curbside pick-up, or bringing it to a recycling program of any kind, clean the hard drive. Purchase software to overwrite the data on the hard drive, or remove and destroy the hard drive before recycling.
Great sharing .. Thanks 🙂
niche share, i like the ideas, recycling of electronic goods, is the best way to make our enviroment go green, in indonesia my country, need 30th years to recycle the electronic goods, because much of them have low economy to buy new electronic good, so they need to use it until it broke.
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I like this idea, not only of plastic waste can be recycled but used electronic goods can also be recycled.
waw is amazing, recycling of electronic goods. in my country there has not been applied. I hope my country will follow the development of advanced countries. creative and innovative
In my country, some people are making a nice profit in recycling electronic goods. A large batch of used/broken IC’s contain gold (wirebond) and other metals like copper (?) and lead. Some ways of extracting these metals are bad for the environment and health though, but being practiced still. I just hope they are all complying with environment/sanitary laws… I can’t say for sure.
Some also recycle old batteries. I’m pretty sure this job is much more dangerous. Again, I just hope they are doing this the right way.
What seems to be trash to some of us can still be of use to others, and this is what prompts facilities and other organizations to collect old models of electronic devices. Even shredding services now include proper disposal of microchips and hard drives which is good. In this way, we do not have to just throw our old gadgets in the trash for this might be harmful to the environment.
Hard drives, cell phones, old paper documents, plastic credit cards are among the items that can be shredded and recycled for other purposes. Thanks to those service providers who make an effort in turning these old and unused eletronic gadgets into good use once again.
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Thanks again
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