Photo Credit: NiloTech Ecycling
There is a new sherriff in town and it is called E-Cycling. What is E-Cycling? E-Cycling or E-waste is the practice of reusing, or distributing for reuse electronic equipment and components rather than discarding them at the end of their life cycle. It’s recycling electronic waste such as: televisions, printer ink, desktop computers, laptops, batteries of all kinds, and DVD’s (cellphones are the largest recycled product). These items need to be recycled properly to preserve landfill space, and most importantly make sure toxic elements get disposed properly. The TIA E-cycling central website gives lots of search results by state for those that want to recycle the electronics we treasure in today’s world.
We should recycle things like batteries, cellphones, televisions,and laptop computers. However, there are many options to reduce the items going into landfills. We can also donate old items that can support schools, low income families, and non-profits. In addition, most electronic batteries contain materials that should not be disposed of in landfills. Items like computers and laptops can be de-manufactured, which involves manually dismantling the electronics in order to market the recyclable raw materials/products that are found. Demanufacturing and dismantling is usually done by trained technicians who use a variety of machine and hand tools. The items mentioned above can be refurbished and resold or donated. Organizations such as StRUT (Student Recycling Used Technology), the National Cristina Foundation, and the Resource Area for Teachers (RAFT) collect and refurbished donated computer equipment for redistribution to schools and charities around the world.
5 Responses
In every household, we have to separate the paper,food scraps, metal etc take out to different garbage bins as categorize for sanitation. Recycle is important because it minimizes the pollution and preserves our natural resources and expense as well. Especially for electronic equipment due to the fact that extracting less raw minerals in the Earth and save energy.
thanks for your comment, Wen. It’s good to know how involved you are in E-cycling and separating other types of refuse.
It’s awesome to hear about this push to reduce the footprint of electronic waste that currently exists. I think that like you said a lot of these electronic devices that we consume are especially harmful to the environment, which makes the recycling of them even more important. I think the fact that this push to recycle them also has the dual benefit of helping school students that are in need of electronic is very cool. The is very much an environmental aspect to what you are talking about, but also a social one.
On average, Americans drink one beverage from an aluminum can every day.But we recycle just over 49% of the cans we use. Since the cans are 100% recyclable, we could drastically reduce the energy needed to produce brand new cans simply by recycling our empties. An aluminum can is able to be returned to the shelf, as a new can, as quickly as 60 days after it’s put into our recycling container.
thanks for this comment, Tahir. Very informative and maybe folks will change their habits and recycle more