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Do you recycle your old electronics?

Even after all the news reporting about the damages created by wrongly disposing of obsolete or broken equipment, we still see unwanted electronics piling up at the dump.

This does not make sense since a lot of the parts: glass, steel, aluminum, copper, plastics and precious metals – can be recycled and reused to make new merchandise. Computers are being upgraded faster than ever before, cellular phones frequently break and electronic products are now seen as a disposable commodity rather than a material possession. In average, the turn-around for upgrading a personal computer is shorter than two years in North America.

The gadgets are not always needed; it’s not all about a real need but mostly because people just like having newer stuff, with the latest gadgets and blinks. Electronic has become a fashion article that will not be needed when something trendier will hit the market.

Why are people not recycling their e-waste?
Much noise has been made by organizations such as Greenpeace in regards to the poor ethics of some recyclers having their recycling done in Asia or Africa or simply sending e-waste towards those countries. The message from Greenpeace has awakened many individuals and I think the result has not been quite what was to be expected. The organization demonstrated to the whole world how big quantities of toxic equipment ends being badly recycled in Asia. We can then make the assumption that some people and organizations are holding on their material, unsure if it will ends in a correct place.

We can’t just put our head in the sand and send our electronic to the junk. A few associations such as CARI are there to make sure that their members are going trough some rules like not exporting to third world countries and not shipping e-waste to landfills. Every accredited companies are verified and customers can be insured of a proper recycling of their equipment when they ship to one of their member.

Many people are still in the belief that they could get money returned to them for their electronic waste. Other people believe that a company can go bring up the equipment, properly sort and separate it, unscrew all the plastic pieces from the metal parts and afford to pay North American salaries without asking for a cent to anyone. You have to realize that recycling old computers only pay a few cents per pound of material. Those stating that they do free pickups and free recycling are most probably doing something improper  if they are not financed directly by the government to do so. PC Recycle, an organization started in 1994 still has to compete against unethical players in the field with no business place, literally managing their business from a cellular phone and a pickup truck. Those “recyclers” are saving what they can resell and the balance is most probably shipped to landfills even though the contrary is told to their clients. At least, nobody can check because these false recyclers are obviously not accredited by any organization.

So before taking someone to recycle your electronic, check around and find who their competition is. If the company does a free recycling, it should raise a red flag. You have to check that the company taking your recycling is part of an association. Make sure also that your recycler is open to show you his recycling center: a clean recycling will come from someone that is transparent in his operations.

Jason Mailley
PC Recycle

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