"Electronic goods recycling" poll

What do you do with your old electronic goods?

Throw them in a dumpster...1 [33%].

Deposit them at a recycling center...1 [33%].

Shove them in a closet or a secluded part of the basement...1 [33%].

Okay, I voted "Throw them in a dumpster" but that is not entirely correct. I have been a scrapper all my life dealing in aluminum, brass, copper, lead, mercury...and re-usable parts like resistors, capacitors, switches, LEDs. Power cords and internal wiring is saved usually unstripped--single strand wire [house wire] is easier to strip. All power packs yield copper from transformers. Anything generating heat will probably have an aluminum heatsink. Computers yield lithium batteries. And there are special components that yield niobium and gold plating. Hardrives, DVD/CD players are cased in aluminum and the harddrive disk itself is aluminum. So the only thing that goes to the dumpster are plastic parts and iron. Friends and colleagues drop all sorts of new and old electronic goods at my door and saving the above will yield several hundred pounds of scrap metals and assorted usable components by the end of the year....now that's "green"...the color of money.

In my metropolis there are several electronic component recyclers and they advertise heavily on television. Sounds good on the surface and one would beat feet to turn in old monitors, towers, printers, and the like. What they don't tell is that they charge to deposit the goods. A monitor, tower, printer, scanner, and television may run as high as $75. I suppose that is okay for those that don't do what I do or have no alternate source of disposal.

And yes, I know people that stuff the goods somewhere...maybe a garage sale down the road? I do horde an extra monitor, mice, a keyboard or two, and assorted computer and audio accessories.


Backfire on recycling--now what?

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Junk televisions and recycling