Will e-waste recycling take place year-round?
BY Robert Wang
The Canton Repository
BOLIVAR - The pile of obsolete televisions, computers and other equipment grew quickly at Stark State College of Technology in Jackson Township.
After a three-day collection in August, the local waste district had about 20 semitruck loads of discarded electronic devices, more than double the collection of the prior year.
Reluctant to send their old monitors, printers, TVs and VCRs to the local landfill, residents waited up to an hour to dispose of the items, so the waste district could have it recycled. Cars lined up all the way up Frank Avenue NW to University Street NW. Extra people had to be called in to handle the waste.
Now after being bombarded by calls from people seeking to dispose of their old PCs, the district is looking at having a year-round free collection of electronics waste, rather than just four times a year. David Held, the executive director of the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste Management District, said he’s been talking to local officials and recyclers about setting up such a program.
“We see people buying cell phones, computers and other electronic devices on a regular basis,” he said. “You buy a device one year and the next year it becomes outdated.”
Technology aficionados are replacing their tube televisions with big-screen high-definition sets. Flat-panel liquid-crystal displays have displaced the bulky cathode-ray tube computer monitors. A Pentium 2 PC was once state of the art. Now it’s a relic.
But Gary Cullen, the chief operating officer of GROUP MIDWEST, a Jackson Township-based business that recycles old electronic items, said discarded equipment often contains toxic materials: Chemicals in the batteries and used ink toner cartridges, lead in the monitors’ cathode ray tubes, mercury relays on circuit cards. It’s not material that many people would want to leak into the water supply.
MORE E-WASTE EXPECTED
With the district seeing an increase of 73 percent from 2004 to 2006 of electronics waste dropped off at its hazardous waste collection, the flow of such e-waste is expected to increase. The federal government is requiring all televisions sold to carry high-definition television signals by 2009. In the next few years, millions of old TVs will be tossed.
Held said the reason why the district doesn’t do its hazardous waste collection year-round is cost. It already costs about a million dollars to do four collections a year because technicians have to carefully dispose of items such as paint and household chemicals. However, electronics waste doesn’t need as much special care.
Held said he’s exploring setting up staffed e-waste collection sites at existing recycling centers in Canton, Jackson Township, Perry Township, New Philadelphia and Wooster. The district would buy trucks to carry the waste to a recycler that was chosen through a bidding process. Held wants to complete a feasibility study and get the program going by sometime next year. He doesn’t yet have a cost estimate.
GROUP MIDWEST is on the list of recyclers being considered by the district. Cullen said depending on supply and demand for the components in the disposed equipment, someone either drops it off without cost, the person pays the company to take the material or the company pays the person for it.
The unwanted devices are disassembled, said Cullen. Metals go to a smelter or dealer. Parts are used to fix other equipment. The lead goes to a company that makes products out of lead. Ink cartridges are sold back to the manufacturer.
Held believes e-recycling will take off.
“I have no doubt that the participation would be very high.”
The Canton Repository
BOLIVAR - The pile of obsolete televisions, computers and other equipment grew quickly at Stark State College of Technology in Jackson Township.
After a three-day collection in August, the local waste district had about 20 semitruck loads of discarded electronic devices, more than double the collection of the prior year.
Reluctant to send their old monitors, printers, TVs and VCRs to the local landfill, residents waited up to an hour to dispose of the items, so the waste district could have it recycled. Cars lined up all the way up Frank Avenue NW to University Street NW. Extra people had to be called in to handle the waste.
Now after being bombarded by calls from people seeking to dispose of their old PCs, the district is looking at having a year-round free collection of electronics waste, rather than just four times a year. David Held, the executive director of the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste Management District, said he’s been talking to local officials and recyclers about setting up such a program.
“We see people buying cell phones, computers and other electronic devices on a regular basis,” he said. “You buy a device one year and the next year it becomes outdated.”
Technology aficionados are replacing their tube televisions with big-screen high-definition sets. Flat-panel liquid-crystal displays have displaced the bulky cathode-ray tube computer monitors. A Pentium 2 PC was once state of the art. Now it’s a relic.
But Gary Cullen, the chief operating officer of GROUP MIDWEST, a Jackson Township-based business that recycles old electronic items, said discarded equipment often contains toxic materials: Chemicals in the batteries and used ink toner cartridges, lead in the monitors’ cathode ray tubes, mercury relays on circuit cards. It’s not material that many people would want to leak into the water supply.
MORE E-WASTE EXPECTED
With the district seeing an increase of 73 percent from 2004 to 2006 of electronics waste dropped off at its hazardous waste collection, the flow of such e-waste is expected to increase. The federal government is requiring all televisions sold to carry high-definition television signals by 2009. In the next few years, millions of old TVs will be tossed.
Held said the reason why the district doesn’t do its hazardous waste collection year-round is cost. It already costs about a million dollars to do four collections a year because technicians have to carefully dispose of items such as paint and household chemicals. However, electronics waste doesn’t need as much special care.
Held said he’s exploring setting up staffed e-waste collection sites at existing recycling centers in Canton, Jackson Township, Perry Township, New Philadelphia and Wooster. The district would buy trucks to carry the waste to a recycler that was chosen through a bidding process. Held wants to complete a feasibility study and get the program going by sometime next year. He doesn’t yet have a cost estimate.
GROUP MIDWEST is on the list of recyclers being considered by the district. Cullen said depending on supply and demand for the components in the disposed equipment, someone either drops it off without cost, the person pays the company to take the material or the company pays the person for it.
The unwanted devices are disassembled, said Cullen. Metals go to a smelter or dealer. Parts are used to fix other equipment. The lead goes to a company that makes products out of lead. Ink cartridges are sold back to the manufacturer.
Held believes e-recycling will take off.
“I have no doubt that the participation would be very high.”
