Sierra Star: E-waste Recycling Effort Hits Oakhurst Next Week
Filed under: Earth911 - January 2, 2008
By Elizabeth Gabriel
Want to get rid of that old VCR? Here’s your chance
So you had a bunch of new electronic devices under your Christmas tree. It’s so 2007 to keep the old ones.
It’s how you get rid of them that gives environmentalists the willies.
Electronic devices have more scary and long-lived hazardous elements in them than a fruit cake has candied fruit.
Such things as cadmium, copper, mercury, arsenic, PCBs, nickel, zinc and lead leach out of all our handy gadgets when they’re just tossed out. Because of the dangers from these elements, in California, it is illegal to throw e-waste, also called universal waste, in the garbage.
That’s part of the reason the Oakhurst Area Chamber of Commerce has scheduled an e-waste recycling event this weekend. Collection will take place in the chamber parking lot (next to the library) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
New chamber president Shelle Abbott said the chamber cares about what’s happening to the earth.
“We can’t live without them (electronics), but we have to help keep our landfills clean,” she said. “Besides, we thought this would be a good time because a lot of people probably got new things for Christmas.”
There is no limit to the number of items household can turn in.
A flier from the chamber states that e-waste is defined as all consumer and business electronic equipment that is near or at the end of its useful life.
“E-waste is the fastest growing solid waste problem in the U.S.,” states the flier, “comprising as much as five percent of the U.S. municipal solid waste and growing at a rate five times faster than all other waste categories.”
On the list for the chamber’s recycling program are computers, VCR and DVD players, fax machines, copiers and printers, amplifiers, microwave ovens, LCD and plasma screens, laptops, television sets, cell phones, MP3 players, stereo systems, speakers and 10-key machines.
Be sure to erase all information off your computer or have this done for you.
According to the Web site www.earth911.com, Americans have amassed an enormous amount of electronic devices—an estimated three billion. Given the large amount of potential products involved, e-waste includes a broad range of electronic devices. Improper disposal of e-waste creates a significant burden on landfills because toxic substances can leach into the soil and groundwater.
The site states that that total annual volume of e-waste is approaching 40 million tons.
“In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that we generated 1.5 billion pounds of all kinds of e-waste in 2006. This includes an estimated 44 million computers and televisions,” the site stated.
It’s the stuff electronics are made of that make them such a threat, not just now, but for thousands of years into the future.
The book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman posits an earth without humans. No apocalypse or destruction, just the sudden disappearance of people. In a segment on farming, chemist Steven McGrath says he figures zinc will take 3,700 years to disperse, cadmium will take 7,500 years, zinc will take 35,000 years and lead won’t disappear for 70,000 years.
Why It’s Bad
What that means for the future is what these elements do to living things.
Here are some conclusions from Earth 911.
- Television sets—Approximately 20 percent of cathode ray tubes (CRT)—pre plasma and LCD TVs—are comprised of lead, equivalent to between four and eight pounds per unit.In babies and children, exposure to lead in drinking water can result in delays in physical and mental development, along with slight deficits in attention span and learning abilities. In adults, it can cause increases in blood pressure. Adults who drink this water over many years could develop kidney problems or high blood pressure.
- Cellular phones—Earth911 estimates a cell phone’s shelf life is only about 18 months and there are more than 500 million used cell phones ready for disposal.”Cell phone coatings are often made of lead, meaning that if these 500 million cell phones are disposed of in landfills it will result in 312,000 pounds of lead released,” reads a warning on earth911. “But possibly the most hazardous component of the cellular phone is the battery.
“Cell phone batteries were originally composed of nickel and cadmium (Ni-Cd batteries). Cadmium is linked as a human carcinogen that causes lung and liver damage. Alternatives contain the potentially explosive lithium, or lead.”
- Computers—Besides lead in CRT computer monitors, laptops have a small fluorescent lamp in the screen that contains mercury, a toxic material when inhaled or digested.It can permanently damage or fatally injure the brain and kidneys; it can be absorbed through the skin or be breathed in.
Neurological damage, impact on memory, attention and language have been found in infants exposed to mercury in the womb.
About Recycling
In addition to taking your e-waste to a recycling center, there are other avenues to disposing of your electronics with minimum impact on the earth.
Many manufacturers will take back their products for recycling. Check with the company to see if there’s a free or low-cost program.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency Web site, www.epa.gov, lists manufacturers, retailers and service providers that offer recycling of e-waste and can also scare the mercury out of you with information on what elements in e-waste can do to you.
Because there are so many things in e-waste, recycling them is a lot more complex than, say, smashing some aluminum cans.
But e-waste recyclers have the same goals as any recyclers: they want to make money by pulling out the useful things and keeping them out of landfills.
Earth 911 states that as much as 99 percent of all materials from electronics are recycled, reused in a different capacity or sold off.
The vast majority of these materials are used for new electronic items because some of the material, the plastic, for example, is the right grade for electronic devices to begin with.
One Response to “Sierra Star: E-waste Recycling Effort Hits Oakhurst Next Week”
The idea that 20% of the weight of TV sets is lead is unbelievable to me since lead, as far as I know, is only used in the solder conections in the TV set or any other piece of electronics. Each connection contains only a drop of solder. One must ask oneself how many conneactions there are and how much solder does each connection have.
I would like to know the original source of your information.
Thank you,
David Perlman