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What's the Best Way to Recycle Old Tech in the US?
Tim Danhamn writes "SmartPlanet.com, a green-focused Web site, has put up an article about the best way to recycle your old tech, including local recycling centers and reusing old technology in other ways. I'm about to upgrade to a new PC and I have a lot of old radios, MP3 players and other electronic goods lying around the house. The article though is mostly about solutions in the UK, so I want to know - what is the best way to recycle old tech in the US?"
Freecycle is unbelievable.
Every time we have listed something, I said to myself "there is no way anyone wants that crap." And every time we immediately get multiple takers.
We listed the plants in a flowerbed we were going to pave over and within a couple of days someone came to our house, dug them out and carted them off.
I was in Tokyo this summer and met a woman from Hong Kong who was giving a presentation at the university on how polluted areas of China are getting because of all the computer trash. The United States and Japan are the two worst offenders of this.
China's idea of "recycling" is having lower income people burn the old parts in open drums to reclaim the metals. This process dumps tons of burned plastic residue, PCB's and metals such as mercury all over the local landscape. There are areas of China that are becoming almost inhabitable. Birth defects are increasing. The study she did went so far as to measure the significant increase in these chemicals in breast milk.
For most of these chemicals they were tracking, the only places in the world that higher concentrations in the environment were in areas of Taiwan where a lot of this is manufactured.
From a financial perspective US companies that are moving manufacturing to China are not really saving any money on the manufacturing costs. (My wife worked in the finance department for a major power tool manufacturer and others have shared similar stories) Where they are saving money is in not having to provide all the controls and filters that the EPA is requiring at their facilities. The Chinese government has been willing to sell the future health of the country in the name of economic progress. And American companies are all too willing to oblige.