The Indianapolis Star: Kermit was wrong: These sites show it’s easy bein’ green
Filed under: Earth 911 - April 22, 2007
ERIKA D. SMITH
The Indianapolis Star (Indiana)
April 22, 2007 Sunday
Kermit was wrong: These sites show it’s easy bein’ green
Most Sundays, I encourage readers to go out and buy a bunch of consumer electronics. I figure, even if a third of you are following my advice, I’ve single-handedly doomed Indiana’s environment with about five extra decades of landfill trash.
This Sunday, I’m taking a break.
Today is Earth Day, and I’m not so concerned with getting you to spend greenbacks as I am with getting you to spend time thinking green.
Consider this: Every year, Americans throw out about 400 million gadgets, according to recycling experts.
So-called e-waste, which includes everything from computers to cell phones to televisions to digital music players, is the fastest-growing portion of our waste stream. From 2004 to 2005, it jumped almost 8 percent at the same time overall municipal waste volume declined, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And of that 2.63 million tons of e-waste, only 12.5 percent of it got recycled.
That has to change.
Many ways exist to recycle consumer electronics, and many organizations can help you do it. Here’s a list of resources to get you started:
http://www.freecycle.org: Some of you might remember this Web site from a column a while back. This site, just like it sounds, is a place where you can give away electronics that you no longer want, or get something you do want. The one catch is, it all has to be free.
Now, you might say: “Why not just sell my old computer or TV on eBay?” Well, you can do that, too. But this Web site is a nice alternative if what you’re trying to get rid of is so old that no one would pay for it, much less the shipping and handling fees.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline: Here’s a quick way to get rid of your old cell phone. Go to any Verizon Wireless store and drop off unused phones, batteries and accessories. The condition of the items doesn’t matter, and neither does the service provider.
Verizon refurbishes and sells the best phones it receives and disposes of the other ones in an environmentally sound way.
Proceeds from the carrier’s HopeLine program go to shelters and nonprofit organizations that work to prevent domestic violence.
http://www.computertakeback.com: Having one computer in the house once was rare. Now many families have three or four, and replace old ones every two years instead of every four or five years.
If you have an old computer hanging around the house, you can recycle it with a bit of effort and cash. Dell, for instance, will take back any brand of computer for $10. This Web site has all
the details and more.
http://www.earth911.org: This is a catchall Web site for everything green.
Need tips on how to recycle batteries? What about motor oil? You can find both here. The information also is available by phone at (877) EARTH-911.
You won’t find a list of recycling facilities in Indianapolis or even around Indiana. But dig around this Web site enough, and you’ll find links to kinds of green organizations that, I’m sure, you never knew existed.
Call Star reporter Erika D. Smith at (317) 444-6424 or send e-mail to erika.smith@indystar.com.
One Response to “The Indianapolis Star: Kermit was wrong: These sites show it’s easy bein’ green”
Dear Ms. Smith,
The fraternity I work for has a computer printer that we no longer use. It is a Hewlett-Packard HP 4SI printer. I know that you are “thinking green” these days–could you come up with an organization that we could help out? Thank you very much.
Bill Ryan