The Good Human » Recycling

Do One Thing: Check Local Recycling Laws.

david — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:30:06 +0000

This week’s Do One Thing is all about recycling. Each state and city has their own recycling laws, so it is very important that you find out what can and cannot be recycled where you live. Check to see if your recycling can be mixed together, what kinds of plastic can be recycled (check out my post about the plastic recycling numbers if you are not sure), and if your items need to be cleaned prior to drop off. The last thing you want to do is to either contaminate the recycling stream or make much more work for the people sorting your recyclables. So check with your town or local facility and make sure you are only recycling the stuff that can be recycled in your area!

Post from: The Good Human

Do One Thing: Check Local Recycling Laws.

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The Problem With E-Waste Recycling Is The Toxic Leftovers.

david — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:30:31 +0000

Think that recycling those electronics means they just “go away” and no one has to deal with them anymore? Think again, unfortunately. From the toxic mess that they can leave in far away lands to the sensitive data that is found on the millions of computers thrown away each year, our e-waste is leaving a trail of destruction around the world. The Federal Government alone gets rid of over 10,000 computers per week, and most all of our waste ends up on shipping containers on their way to countries without strict laws and rules on how to deal with the toxic chemicals that come along with them. It’s not as clear-cut as taking your cellphone to a recycling facility and thinking that it will be properly disposed of and no one has to deal with it anymore. From Truthdig:

“We may think we are doing the right thing by giving our old electronics to a recycler or a free collection event,” says Sarah Westerville, BAN’s e-Stewardship program director. “But many of those businesses calling themselves recyclers are little more than international waste distributors. They take your electronic items for free, or pocket your recycling fee, and then simply load them onto a sea-going container, and ship them to China, India or Nigeria.” The Basel Action Network investigated Nigeria’s e-waste situation and detailed its findings in a shocking report. “We saw people using e-waste to fill in swamps. Whenever the piles got too high, they would torch them. Residents complained about breathing the fumes. We saw kids roaming barefoot over this material, not to mention chicken and goats, which wind up in the local diet.”

According to the report, materials at the dump are a dangerous mix of toxic ash, broken CRT glass, dead animals, medical wastes, used chemical containers and food scraps, which creates conditions for contamination and infection.

I highly recommend you read the entire article I linked to above, as really opens one’s eyes to where our e-waste goes and who it affects after we drop it in the blue bins. The United Nations has called on Western countries to stop using Africa as a landfill for our useless electronics, and I could not agree more. If we are going to continue consuming unabated, we need to start figuring out a way to deal with the consequences in a responsible manner instead of just shipping it off for someone else to deal with.

Photo from Shutterstock

Post from: The Good Human

The Problem With E-Waste Recycling Is The Toxic Leftovers.

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Trade & Recycle Your Gadgets For Cash At Gazelle.com.

david — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:28:00 +0000

Before you take the easy (and potentially dangerous) way out and just throw away your unused/old gadgets (at least recycle!), you might want to check out Gazelle.com and see if you can get any cash for it instead. Gazelle recycles, and most of the time pays you for, your old iPods, computers, iPhones, Blackberry’s, digital cameras, GPS units, etc.. A friend sent along the link to them since he knew I was planning on selling my MacPro desktop tower, so I answered all the questions about my computer and these guys said they would pay over $1,100 for it. Score! Just gotta get my data cleaned off the computer and will probably be sending it in within the next week or so.

Sending in your gadgets to companies like this help our world on so many fronts – it gives you back some cash that you spent on the item in the first place; it keeps it out of a landfill; and oftentimes it allows someone else to buy the gadget used, meaning less raw materials need to be used for a new one.

Post from: The Good Human

Trade & Recycle Your Gadgets For Cash At Gazelle.com.

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iPhone App iRecycle Helps You Find Recycling Facilities Near You.

david — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:30:51 +0000

I just downloaded iRecycle to my iPhone and wow – so cool. You enter your location and what you need to recycle, and the application tells you the locations nearby that will take your stuff off your hands. Granted, there aren’t many places here where I live (try, none), but in most major cities that I entered there was plenty of information available.

Some features include:

Access to over 100,000 recycling and disposal locations for over 200 materials
Get directions to the nearest site from your current location
Auto-complete saves time typing so you can spend more on finding a location convenient to you
Check your search history to replay old search results
Find additional information for each location like hours of operation, other materials accepted (hey, maybe you can recycle all those plastic bags from under your kitchen sink), their Web site, etc.
Call locations directly from search results

Have an iPhone and want to pick up iRecycle? It’s free and available at the iTunes App Store (Link opens iTunes)

Post from: The Good Human

iPhone App iRecycle Helps You Find Recycling Facilities Near You.

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