How to take out your e-trash
Get rid of those electronics in an eco-happy manner
By Dianne Smith
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
My dad collects old computers. To him, they’re antiques.
He says it’s like owning a ’55 Chevy.
He goes to garage sales on Saturday mornings and brings home computer parts of all sorts. He tinkers around with them, just as you would with an old car, and eventually pieces together a working computer.
It’s a hobby, but it’s also my dad’s way of reducing electronic waste. He likes to save computers that other people would have thrown away. Just a couple years ago, he bought a nearly new computer from a guy at a garage sale. “The windows are broken,” the guy said, referring to the Windows operating system. My dad took it home and reinstalled Windows, bringing it back to life. It was a simple fix, but one that not everyone knows is possible.
Kansas “E” Recycling sorts the products it receives, such as these computer cases, by type when storing them in its warehouse. Items like CRT monitors can contain as many as 7 lbs. of lead, so it’s important to recycle them.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 2 million tons of electronic waste was thrown away in 2005, while only 350,000 tons was recycled. Electronic waste, or e-waste, includes computers, printers, microwaves, TVs, cell phones and other consumer electronics. About 2 billion units of consumer electronics were sold between 1980 and 2004, and about half of those products are still in use or being reused today. The other half is in storage or in landfills, or has been recycled or exported to third-world countries.
Most of my dad’s random computer parts are worthless, but he does have a few prized possessions. He has a ’94 Power Macintosh 7100 and an ’82 Kaypro II, the first portable computer. My dad’s antiques are a few of the 180 million consumer electronics still in storage. The owners don’t use these products, but they haven’t gotten rid of them yet.
“There’s a lot of people that have computers in our basements or cell phones in a drawer that they don’t know what to do with,” says Jeff Severin, director of the KU Center for Sustainability.
As much as my mom complains about the junk in the basement, electronics in storage aren’t the problem. The problem comes when consumers decide to dispose of these products.
Dangers of e-waste
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, e-waste accounts for only 2 percent of the solid waste in landfills. But that 2 percent can cause a big problem. Electronics contain heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury, which can leach into groundwater after being put in landfills and escaping from the landfill’s rubberized liner.
“When you put something in a landfill, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to stay there,” Severin says.
Although humans do require trace amounts of some metals, heavy metals are toxic. Lead is found in the glass in TVs and computer monitors made with cathode-ray tubes, or CRTs, which were the only monitors available before flat-screen displays. Small amounts are also found in the solder and other connectors. The older CRTs contain as much as 7 lbs. of lead, while the newer ones have about 2 lbs.
Nickel-cadmium batteries were used in laptops and other portable electronics before nickel-metal hydride and lithium ion batteries were invented. Mercury is used in the bulbs that light flat-panel monitors and laptops. The EPA says all three metals can cause numerous health problems and even death in high concentrations.
‘The real recyclers’
Despite the dangers of heavy metals, the EPA reports that just 15 to 20 percent of electronics are recycled. This number has remained steady since 1999, simply because the number of obsolete products continues to increase even as the rate of recycling increases.
In 2005, about 350 million individual electronic products, weighing 2.2 million tons, became obsolete. The average lifespan for most electronics is five years, and because of the increasing rate at which new technology is released, the number of obsolete electronics increases every year.
To combat this problem, the University has been running its own electronic recycling program for about seven years. From July 2006 to June 2007, KU Recycling collected 5 tons of electronic waste. Celeste Hoins, administrative manager for KU Recycling, says electronic recycling is encouraged but not mandatory on campus.
“Those parts and pieces take up a big part of our dumpsters,” Hoins says. “Keeping these things out of landfills is the environmentally responsible thing to do.” The service is available only for campus departments, not individuals or students. The computers and other electronics that KU Recycling collects are stored in a warehouse on West Campus until they can be picked up by Kansas “E” Recycling, a Lawrence-based company that prides itself on not sending anything to landfills.
“We’re the real recyclers,” says Brent Lee, operations manager for Kansas “E” Recycling. “We do all the bad stuff that no one wants to do.”
Choosing a reputable recycler is important because many companies do what is called “asset recovery,” which includes taking the parts that can be reused or sold for profit and sending the rest to landfills. Real recycling is expensive because it’s labor-intensive to separate the different materials within the products.
Kansas “E” Recycling accepts almost all electronics for free. It charges $10 to recycle computer monitors and microwaves and $1 per diagonal inch for TVs, meaning that a 27-inch TV would cost $27 to recycle. These costs cover the company’s labor costs, which go to employees who painstakingly separate the plastics from the metals. Lee says the company needs volume to be successful, and will wait until it has a large amount of one element, such as metal that can be sold as scrap metal, before it gets rid of it. The company sells whatever materials it can, but most often it is just trying to break even.
“Recycling is not always profitable,” Lee says, “but it’s the right thing to do.”
UNI Computers, 1403 W. 23rd St., is Kansas “E” Recycling’s only consumer drop-off point in Lawrence. The company has another drop-off point in Topeka at Dodge/Carroll Electronics, 1016 S.W. Sixth St. Both UNI Computers and Dodge/Carroll Electronics also hold special recycling drives during the August back-to-school season and during the December holiday season to collect microwaves and TVs.
Reduce and reuse
Repairing, reusing or donating old computers is the best way to reduce e-waste before it has to be recycled. Computer companies are making their products in a more environmentally friendly way. This year, Apple released the Macbook Air, which has no mercury or arsenic and uses an LED backlight to light up the screen, which uses less energy. Its 100 percent aluminum shell can be recycled just like an aluminum soda can.
“Technology is so necessary nowadays. We just need to be more aware of the options out there,” says Bobby Grace, Prairie Village junior and green expert at the Tech Shop. “As soon as it is actually engineering and financially possible, the companies are going to do it.”
Newer computers help conserve energy, too. Intel introduced its Core Duo II technology, which allows two processors to be packaged on one board, using less materials and less energy. The Core Duo processor was first used in the Macbook Air, but other computer manufacturers have since requested it. Grace says HP even includes prepaid recycling envelopes with each of its ink cartridges.
Both UNI Computers and the Tech Shop make an effort to help the consumer figure out what’s wrong with their computer before they let the consumer buy a new one.
“We’re here to do what’s best for you,” says Chad Frickey, manager of UNI Computers. “We’re not trying to sell as many machines as possible.”
Frickey says that although most customers don’t know about recycling computers, being a drop-off point helps bring in customers.
“Responsible companies get more people through the door,” says Lee of Kansas “E” Recycling, who adds that the drop-off points get free advertising for their recycling program on the City of Lawrence Web site, www.lawrencerecycles.org. The Web site also lists other locations where consumers can recycle specific products.
Robert Brewer, 2007 KU graduate and senior technician at the Tech Shop, says his family got into recycling after he performed in his third-grade musical about recycling. “We had a song for each type of recycling with different types of music, even rap,” Brewer says. “Electronic recycling was part of it.”
My dad may never part with his antique Kaypro II, but at least he’s doing what he can to reduce electronic waste.
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