Published April 7, 2016
Tired of staring at your old, dusty laptop? It’s time to think about spring cleaning and recycling your old devices. But don’t just toss it! You will want to clean off your personal information and consider better options for the afterlife of your product.
The life cycle of electronics is growing shorter, leaving old electronics forgotten in drawers or piling up in landfills. The toxic metals in all these old cell phones, PCs and monitors are the fastest growing stream of domestic waste in the US.
According to the Environmental Leader, putting devices out with general trash is contributing to a predicted rise in global volume of e-waste from 41.8 million tons in 2014 to 93.5 million tons in 2016. The materials used to build many devices contain toxins such as lead (circuit boards), mercury (LCD displays) and cadmium (LEDs).
Repurposing old electronics would mean keeping toxins out of landfills and groundwater. E-waste currently represents 2% of the trash in United States landfills, but 70% of the overall toxic waste. We can easily have zero toxic waste production at the University at Buffalo, but how?
So, what should you do in order to e-cycle your device?
To learn more about how you can make an impact and be more sustainable, visit http://www.buffalo.edu/recycling.