Trash and better trash how to#

The definition of e-waste is likely to keep expanding. The challenge is getting recycling rates, still stubbornly low, to increase. With electronic recyclers like GLEC, we have a solution. But in far too many instances, they are thrown away. It’s ironic, in some ways, that these devices are called “e-waste,” since they’re not waste at all. That includes materials like plastic, glass, and metals, which is why they may be considered “junk” or “obsolete” to consumers but still serve an essential purpose. Virtually all electronic waste contains some form of recyclable material. Or recovering the parts within the devices that still have value, and providing manufacturers with recycled metals that can be used to make new products. For instance, include protecting human and environmental health by keeping those devices out of landfills. The recycling of e-waste serves a lot of useful purposes. How You Can Helpįortunately, there’s a proven solution. But you’re also preventing it from happing at a mine somewhere else.

Every time you recycle your electronics, you are preventing your E-waste from leaching toxic metals into your groundwater. Having an environmentally-friendly source of recycled metal is better for the environment than a company digging up new sources of ore. Not only is this a problem for E-waste in landfills, but this is a side effect of mining for new sources of metal too. That, in turn, causes the wildlife to get sick from lead, arsenic, cadmium, and other metal poisonings due to the high concentration of these minerals. Not only is this bad for anyone using a natural well, but it hurts the nearby wildlife. It continues to the groundwater and the sources to all the freshwater in the surrounding area. That toxic water under the landfill doesn’t stop below the landfill. The problem is that there is so, so much E-waste that the trace amounts have ballooned over the years. The more E-waste and metals at the landfill, the more of these trace toxic materials show up in the groundwater. Eventually, these traces of toxic materials pool into the ground below the landfill. When E-waste gets buried at a landfill, it can dissolve in microscopic traces into the gross sludge that permeates at the landfill. However, most electronics contain some form of toxic materials, including beryllium, cadmium, mercury, and lead, which pose serious environmental risks to our soil, water, air, and wildlife. While above ground, modern electronics are safe to use and be around.

alone, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that up to 60 million metric tons of e-waste end up in landfills every year. If a product is powered electronically and someone thinks they can create a better version, that contributes to e-waste.Īnd we care about this because, for years now, unwanted electronic devices have been filling landfills across the globe. Think of the many VCR players that got replaced when the DVD player hit the market, and now the DVD players getting replaced by Blu-ray players. Technological advances are coming at us at such a dizzying speed that a lot of electronic devices that still work fine are the ones considered obsolete. Today, though, a growing amount of e-waste is not considered to be products that have stopped working or become obsolete. Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS Systems) E-waste is particularly dangerous due to toxic chemicals that naturally leach from the metals inside when buried. Often, if the item goes unsold in the store, it will be thrown away. This includes working and broken items that are thrown in the garbage or donated to a charity reseller like Goodwill. After several terms got suggested, including “Digital rubbish,” a consensus formed around the simple word “e-waste.” E-waste Defined E-waste is any electrical or electronic equipment that’s been discarded. We also have something else today: a term for this issue.

But a lot has changed since then, particularly the number of electronics being discarded today. The ongoing challenge of how best to dispose of used and unwanted electronics isn’t a new one and dates back at least to the 1970s. What is e-waste? And how do we dispose of it?Į-waste is electronic products that are unwanted, not working, and nearing or at the end of their “useful life.” Computers, televisions, VCRs, stereos, copiers, and fax machines are everyday electronic products.

Trash and better trash how to#

How to Prepare your Business Electronics for Recycling