Help the environment: Recycle that TV
What exactly do you do with that old analog television that doesn't receive a digital signal?
As the years go by, new technological hardware is introduced almost daily, leaving last week's consumer gadgets obsolete, but completely recyclable.
Stephanie Carroll, project manager at Isabella County Recycling Center, said used technology can be useful because circuit boards contain heavy metals and plastics that can be reused.
However, these elements can create health hazards if they are not properly recycled.
The leftover junk is collectively termed electronic waste, or "e-waste," and it's a growing problem all over the world.
In the United States alone, an estimated 70 percent of heavy metals in landfills comes from discarded electronics, according to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.
"When it gets into the water system, they can bio-accumulate in animals. Especially fish," she said. "Those heavy metals stay in the body and as you consume them over time, they have difference impacts on the body."
Katherine Blystone, CMU chemistry temporary faculty, said other risks arise during the mining of elements from the Earth's crust.
Mining for the amount of each element necessary to build a circuit board takes place all over the world. But according to Blystone, the materials all go back to the countries they came from in the form of waste.
If extracted, the precious metals in circuit boards, including gold, silver and platinum, can be worth money, which makes them appealing to residents of the third world countries.
"They melt down the metals in the same pots they use to cook in," Blystone said. "It's a sad situation."
And a dangerous one. Fumes and bio-accumulation of the plastics and metals cause an increased rate of cancer.
Blystone said the only way to reduce the impacts of discarding electronics is to reuse the materials properly.
"I don't know of anything other than reducing the need to mine, and that comes in by recycling," she said. "Here's the stuff right here - all we have to do is get it out again because it's 100 percent recyclable. That would drop the demand for excavating all this (heavy metal)."
Carroll said all the technology recovered in Isabella County is kept in semi-trucks, then transported by a Michigan-based company to a facility specializing in recycling hazardous wastes.
"They take the computers and TVs apart and recover the heavy metals and valuable metals," she said. "They scrap out and recycle everything that they can."
The recycling center has drop-off days for electronic waste at their Broomfield location. Drop-offs are by appointment only, and the next drop off date is May 8. There are a total of seven drop-off dates between March and November.
metro@cm-life.com
