In honor of NYC's new plastic bag recycling initiative, this week I want to take a look at another part of the web 2.0 gadget life cycle - what do you do with all those electronic toys when you're done with them?
Let's start with that ubiquitous modern accessory, the cell phone, 426,000 of which are "retired" every day in America. Assuming yours still works and you just want to upgrade, you can put it to work by donating it. The Center for Domestic Violence Prevention's CORA (Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse), the Wireless Network Foundation's CALL TO PROTECT, and other similar programs like them provide them to victims and survivors of domestic violence who would otherwise go without this lifeline. Other groups collect cell phones as a fundraising method. Cell Phones for Soldiers, for example, collects and sells phones to purchase calling cards for service members stationed overseas. They'll even pay for your postage when mailing in a phone. For a list of ways to donate your phone to a good cause, visit CollectiveGood.
If your phone's completely shot, there are still alternatives to tossing it in the trash. VOIP-news gives you 50 ways to leave your lover, er, cellular. Some, like BetterBuyBack.com and CellforCash will buy your phone. Why would someone pay for your broken phone? VOIP-news explains that "a used cell phone’s value lies mainly in small amounts of minerals in its circuits — gold, nickel and especially tantalum," which is "vital to manufacturing cell phones and many other electronic devices." [via VOIP-news]
If you've got a bigger item like a keyboard or CRT monitor sitting around collecting dust, you're not alone. According to the EPA, "used or unwanted electronics amounted to approximately 1.9 to 2.2 million tons" of e-waste in 2005 alone. Call2Recycle and RECONNECT both provide information about drop off sites for electronics recycling, a process that ensures that materials like lead and arsenic don't end up in a landfill where they can leak into the soil and water. Electronics manufacturers and retailers are also starting to take back products at the end of their life cycle, something I learned about firsthand while trying to recycle by iPod earbugs (read about my adventures here). Recently, Sharp, Toshiba, and Panasonic announced plans to form the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company, or MRM, to coordinate nationwide ewaste recycling programs. [via Treehugger]
Electronics recycling, however, is not without its problems. Separating and extracting the valuable metals and hazardous materials from the devices being recycled poses significant health risks to the workers exposed to them. This is a major problem in developing countries like China and India where the e-waste recycling industry has proliferated, and arguably in violation of the Basel Convention, which prohibits shipping hazardous wastes to other countries. (You can read more about this issue on the Basel Action Network's website.) Apple is one of the few companies to actively address this issue. A statement on the "Greener Apple" website reads "All the e-waste we collect in North America is processed in the U.S., and nothing is shipped overseas for disposal. We carefully review 'environmental fate' submissions from each vendor, so we know how raw materials are handled at the end of the recycling process . . . we also review the performance of their downstream vendors. They must comply with all applicable health and safety laws." [via Treehugger]
Of course, the best way to avoid the environmental and health effects of hazardous wastes is to avoid them in the first place. This is the thinking behind the greening of the Macbook Air and the One Laptop Per Child project's XO (both discussed last week). But until manufacturers and end users phase out these materials, recycling remains the best option available.
-Annalisa
[Originally written for Buddylube]
