Benefits of Recycling Electronics
How many times have you seen computers and other electronics sitting on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up to go to the landfill? This calamity happens a LOT more than you may think! There was a famous story told about Atari Computers and how the video game crash of 1983 affected them. As the story goes, due to the poor sales of the “E.T.” video game for their Atari 2600 video game console, Atari supposedly buried thousands of unsold game cartridges in the Nevada or New Mexico desert in 1983.
Sadly, this “story” was proven true in recent years as a group of amateur armchair archeologists ventured to Alamogordo, New Mexico in 2014 for a six-month canvassing of the Alamogordo city landfill. Thousands of buried video games and video game boxes were discovered during the excavation. The source of the burial was from a warehouse kept by Atari in El Paso, Texas. Atari decided to divest itself of games, boxes, and consoles and shipped the lot (reportedly between 10 and 20 semi-trucks worth) to the Alamogordo landfill.
Granted, this was an extreme case of an electronics mass grave, but it highlights the problem that landfills are being taken up by old electronics. Landfills have limited space as it is and as was highlighted in this story, electronics are not organic, they don’t simply “return to the earth”, they’ll just sit there in perpetuity. There is a happy ending to the Atari excavation story as many of the items that were rescued from the landfill are now taking up residence in video game museums and other venues.
Let’s take a look at some benefits of recycling electronics and how it can help all of us in the long run.
Recycling Electronics Creates a Cleaner Environment
To save precious landfill space, recycling electronics is simply the best way to go. Think of the plastics used in electronics and the circuit boards and the CRT monitors, all of those toxins have to go somewhere when they’re buried. That “somewhere” is in the ground and the groundwater which will eventually lead to pollution of the site and the nearby water well.
Recycling plastic, glass, and aluminum cans are ubiquitous to the green movement and have been so now for the last two decades. Recycling electronics should be the next evolutionary step in the green movement process.
Recycling Electronics Is Good for the Economy
One noticeable market that has opened up in the last two decades due to recycling is items made from recycled materials. There are clothes, bags, fashion wear, and even other electronics that have been made out of recycled materials. These recycled material offerings are not only produced with less pollution, but are also cheaper to make due to the eschewing of raw materials needed for production. Less production costs mean more profit for the manufacturer and ultimately, better economic performance over the long term.
Recycling Electronics Makes Healthier Outcomes for Humans
Recycling electronics provides a way for us as humans to give back to the earth. The earth has given so much to us in the form of water, sunlight, food, shelter, etc. Isn’t it time that we give something back and help further the planet’s life expectancy? Think of a world where we won’t need the use for landfills! Instead of those unsightly large fields with seagulls and other scavengers circling around, that land could be better utilized for all of humanity.
When more and more of us are recycling electronics, we will form a bond of helping that will spread like wildfire to other nearby communities. This “each one, teach one” methodology will instill this healthy outlook onto others, especially those more impressionable such as young children and teenagers. Those youths will spread that message to their future offspring and the circle will continue to widen out over generations.
High Tech Recycling – Recycle Your Electronics Today
High Tech Recycling offers pick-up or drop-off locations for your electronics when they’ve reached the end of their useful life. All data on these electronic devices that we pick up or receive have their data permanently wiped before we break the components down to recycle. Read more about our services here. If you have questions about how to recycle your electronic device, please feel free to contact us for further information today!
