recycling tv's etc.

mm spake thus:

First of all, not true: think about all the solder on the circuit boards. Until manufacturers go to completely lead-free solder (ugh), there'll be plenty of Pb besides in the tube.

It's not so much a matter of the lead "escaping" (I'm guessing you're visualizing it going off into the air somehow) as leaching into water in a landfill, where it can form all kinds of lead-containing compounds that can come back to poison us. So yes, it's a real problem, not just something that some environmental bureaucrat dreamed up.

As long as the dumps don't leach into the water table that's true.

It's a con.

Ppl are in the future going to have to effectively *pay* for them to be recycled simply because there is nothing much worth recycling !

It's started in Europe already. Expect prices of consumer electronics to rise ~ 10%.

Graham

p.s. nesgroups aren't here for ppl to email you. You're meant to come back to read the replies and comment otherwise the purpose of them is lost.

mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I saw some show on TV a bit back where in some poor country they get mountains of junk electronics appliances (locally or on barges, don't recall exactly) and poor locals pick through them getting specs of all kinds of stuff to raise a few bucks.

I know. The sig is only intended for people who want to mail me for whatever reasons of their own. I'm not requesting email.

Remove NOPSAM to email me..

Wow. I guess it's better than the guano mines, but otoh, they pay a lot better. Hard to believe it would be worth it to ship stuff from the US all the way to this place, or anywhere like it.

Definitely they knowingly took tv's and monitors in Baltimore County until this opened, and probably still do. Just Sunday a friend of mine told me how he missed the annual neighborhood dumpster and didn't know what to do with a whole door, but he put it out, and the county took it. I've seen them take kitchen cabinets too.

But they did cut out once a month bulk collection (big things) and now one has to phone someone, and agree on a day to put it out. And pay for it in most cases.

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Yes, and they aren't following the EU protocols for handling such hazardous waste.

I guess there is some money to be made from them. I know of a plant being built in Florida that will specialize in recycling electronics. Used to be some gold in the connectors but I think much has been eliminated.

There must be a lot of bulk in that stuff. I'm just thinking of my personal use over the last 15 - 20 years or so. I'm on my fifth monitor, at least the fourth computer (some were upgraded in the same case), three printers moved on, two TVs. Makes for a fair amount of bulk for just one person.

That's a matter of opinion ... There are many more much more serious sources of environmental pollutants that represent a far greater risk to health than lead in electronic waste.

Arfa

There are two issues there. The first is keeping unneeded things out of the landfill. The second is recovering some of the material.

The recovery is I gather expensive compared to what they recover, and the materials needed for the recovery is toxic. So when it's shipped over to third world countries, the danger comes because they are trying to make money off it, and take steps that wouldn't be allowed in North America. The toxic stuff ends up in the water table over there, rather than in North America, though at least when it's shipped over there, they are trying to do recovery.

If people simply did some stripping themselves before tossing, a good portion of the bulk would diminish. If people throwing out computers would take the electronics out, and then get the metal casing to metal recycling, that does take care of much of the bulk. Same with printers, get the circuit boards out of the plastic. Not a perfect solution, but better than nothing.

I've never tossed something that is intact. But then I want the parts myself. So I will strip a bad hard drive down, get the magnets out of it, and the metal from them goes to metal recycling. This is not even some great skill, if people can screw together an Ikea table, they can strip down their computer before tossing.

But then there's an interesting point. If I come across a computer waiting for the garbage, if it's intact (and of interest), I'd make the effort to bring it home. But the more that's been stripped, the less likely I will. I may take parts, if anything interesting remains. A complete unit might find someone who can fix it or make use of it (a lot of electronics is tossed for reasons other than it's broken), but a stripped unit won't.

And as electronic recycling becomes common place, I'm not fully conviced the right decisions will be made. I'd love to drop off some junk (like that I've pulled from the garbage in the first place) and be able to claim something someone else has tossed, that interests me or can finish off something I have (like claim a hard drive to go in that computer I brought home that had none). But that can't happen, because any useful items, at least here, are sold on the used market to help finance the collection. Yet I imagine there is much that can't find a market, because it's old or obscure, the sorts of things I'd really like to come across. The rest is likely stripped, but again, I wonder if they seek the hard to reuse things like the gold on connectors, rather than the parts themselves.

Michael

Alexandria, Virginia, 50 miles to the southwest of the original poster, prefers that "obsolete" computer equipment be turned in at the toxic waste dump (as I call it), which is open one day per week. They have a huge dumpster, open so that you can walk in, that slowly fills with CPUs, printers, and monitors. In addition, people throw in old stereo equipment and TV sets. When the coast is clear and no one is looking, sometimes I help myself to an occasional goody. Usually I can recover a toner cartridge or a needed cable. If I saw a nice open reel tape deck, I'd try as hard as I could to grab it and run.

The woman who supervises the dump takes a dim view of this personal recycling. She yells at me when she sees me in there, so I've had to stop helping myself to the swag. It's a shame, too, as there is a mountain of decent stuff that ought to be free for the taking.

I have seen one of those full dumpsters being hauled away. It was an absolute heap of electronics, all headed off for destruction.

For an excellent resource for connecting people who have usable items they don't want with people who would like to have them, check out

Jo Ann

Beloved Leader wrote:

Contact the city government and tell them what you want to do.

You can easily intercept a lot of good stuff if you post on craigslist asking for free broken electronics. I used to pick up loads of good stuff but eventually I had far too many projects and no need for any more electronics.

Also Craig's List (free section).

A lot of what's on TV may be "hazardous waste," but I've never had a problem getting rid of one. I put it on the curb and it disappears long before the garbage men get to it.

Arfa Daily spake thus:

Well, it's all relative, isn't it? My point was that lead pollution from discarded electronics is a serious problem. If you live here in West Oakland, then you're going to be more concerned about getting asthma from all the trucks going in and out of the Port of Oakland.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com spake thus:

Don't want to rain on your parade, but no, it's not an excellent resource, at least from my experience. It seems to be full of messages from nice, well-intentioned middle-class folks who are concerned about finding a good home for the rest of that package of paper plates, or whatever. It is available, but be prepared for disappointment. (Plus, I don't care for the way it's implemented as a whole bunch of Google groups, but that's a different complaint.)

It is what it is. I have two TV's, a cordless phone and a couple of other things - all saved from the waste stream.

There are some silly laws that say once something is in the dump, it must stay there. Our town used to have an area where you could put unwanted stuff for others to take, but no more.