Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Electronic junk - more than just a nuisance



In my garage sits a bag of old cell phones, power supplies, a really lousy HP multifunction printer (watch this video!) and a three-year-old defunct RCA TV I bought at Walmart. Disposal is becoming a bigger issue as consumer electronics refresh more frequently. The problem sort of takes takes the thrill out of buy the latest gadget, but I suspect my addiction to buying one or two electronics gadgets every month will not subside. Amazon makes it too damn easy. In the past 45 days, I've bought a Garmin GPS, a Maxtor NAS storage, and HP printer and a lens for my Nikon D50.  
 
As I squeeze to get around that 32-inch behemoth of a TV in my garage, I consider just leaving at the door of the Walmart where I bought it along with a cheap lawnmower that is always painfully hard to start. Alas, I will recycle it on Sept. 16 for $10 at my town's recycling event for solvents, electronics, used oil and other poisonous substances. But I have always thought Walmart and RCA bear some if not much of the responsibility to make sure junk like this isn't tossed into the nearest landfill. Searching "recycling" on the Walmart site yielded 52 hits and almost all were books in recycling, many costing 97 cents. Al least you can toss those into the fireplace.

Bestbuy has a recycling program, but New York state is a little far to go. CircuitCity has a trade-in program called Dealtree. But they're small relative to the rate at which the electronics wares are propagating. 

What do you do with your electronic junk?
  

        

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