How does one recycle various bits associated with the electronics we’ve collected of the years? (In the US, though feel free to bring up your country specific options for others to see)
Motherboards, DC wallwarts, power supplies, sata/usb adapters from shucked hard drives, cables, cell phones… is this stuff actually able to be recycled? Or does it go to a landfill regardless, like all the plastic we put in the recycling bin?
I’m hoping there’s some way to either extract the valuable bits, or at least prevent the heavy metals from leaching, but I’ve no idea where to send this sort of stuff.
we work with a scrap recycler that comes and grabs it all then parts out the good bits to lower and lower levels then sends the bits overseas to be recycled to the fullest.
we actually keep those for data recoveries as WD in particular use a special sauce from time to time.
illegal in this country at an enterprise scale due to EPA restrictions
Currently, you’re lookin at 12-15 years before it enters mainstream water supplies in central U.S. but that’s as good as it gets
In Sweden: there are regulations that forbids placing electronic waste in landfills, and that requires individuals to be able to dispose of such waste without cost. E.g. I live in an apartment and we have a “recycling room” in the area where one can throw away different fractions to be recycled: electronic waste, batteries, flourescent lights, “metallic objects” (like frying pans, umbrellas, and such), and packaging materials: metal, glass, plastics, and cardboard; are all their own fractions.
This is typical for apartments. We also have small “recycling centers” spread all over the place for people who don’t live in apartments, and there are regional large recycling centers where anyone can leave these types of waste and also larger items like fridges, sofas, window panes and such as well as toxic substances like used paint cleaner (free for individuals; I think companies pay a fee).
Everything is recycled as far as possible; combustible things are “energy recycled” (used to generate electricity and heat).
The European Union is pretty active regarding this and has a goal to “go from waste to resource” with new rules coming into play between 2020 and 2025.
Edit: Oh, and household biological waste - compost - is also separately collected and used to produce biogas and fertiliser now. Our local garbage trucks run on biogas produced from this waste!
Edit2: As a result of all this, I throw out maybe 4-6 plastic bags of household garbage per year. Everything else is recycled.
Czechia: Mandatory that municipal waste processing plants accept modern electronics. At least bring it there.
Waste processing plants often shipped to China instead of recycling, but that is mostly going away (rumour from insider). Most of the trash is actually working in my country.
I have no idea what I would do in the US. Hopefully local municipality can answer your question as there is no way it is homogenized.
My local recycling center takes it. But i also have a local freegeek that recyclces e-waste. Goodwill and other large thrift stores take e-waste for recycling as well.
I took a trip to the midwest once (where all the national parks are). The garbage disposal instructions for the AirBnB I stayed at was literally “drive to that landfill and toss your garbage into the chasm with all the other crap.” Recyclables were not afforded any special treatment. And I did not recall any instructions for special handling of environmental hazards.
Electronics recycling will probably scale up before the U.S. does anything nationwide with plastics and food waste. China’s putting the squeeze on the raw materials for electronics, so it only makes sense to ramp up recovery of the precious materials from the electronics that are already on U.S. soil.
First port of call is trying to find someone who might want your old equipment. I’ve bought many old computers and PC components/accessories from thrift stores and eBay. Your old equipment probably has negative value to you, so someone from Craigslist or Facebook marketplace giving you $20 for a box of junk you want to get rid of is a great deal for both of you…
Where that’s not viable, you’ll find that major retailers who sell this type of equipment usually take it back:
Or call up your local city garbage collection service and ask them. If you pay the bill every month you should periodically be getting instructions and have a phone number listed to contact them. If instead you’re in an apartment or similar, there may be contact info on the sticker on the nearest dumpster. Or you can probably just go to your local city’s website to find disposal info and contact information if you have any questions.
