After almost two decades of faithful service, my first 6-disc CD player stopped working. I can still remember tearing open the huge cardboard CD packaging, and popping my Mariah Carey CD in the player… ahhh, the good old days. I hadn’t investigated how to dispose of it safely, so it’s still sitting in the corner of my living room (did I mention that it broke in 2008?).
I knew I couldn’t just throw electronics out with my other trash. Aside from taking up lots of space in landfills, some of the substances in electronics can have a harmful impact on our environment. On the more positive side, some of the material used to make electronics can be reused to make other electronics in the future, so it conserves raw resources for future production.
If the CD player still worked I would have donated it to a local charity. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) website describes several disposal options to consider. For instance, my local government’s waste management department, hosts collection days specifically for consumer electronics and other products that shouldn't be dumped in landfills. EPA has also established partnerships with several electronics retailers where I can take my CD player for them to recycle for me. There are other local resources and organizations that can help me recycle and dispose of electronics.
The Postal Service also has a mail back program to recycle smaller electronics (cell phones, PDAs, and ink cartridges); you can pick up a free mail-back envelope in one of their branches. My CD player is way too big for that option, but I made a mental note to recycle my old phones this way.
Have you ever disposed of your electronics in any of these ways?
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