Earlham College | News from Public Affairs

E-Cycling:
Getting the Lead Out

What makes your favorite electronic gadget hazardous? Lead leads the pack when it comes to electronic hazardous waste. There's lead in your laptop and your cell phone. Your old television with a cathode ray tube is loaded with lead. According to the environmental Web site earth911.org, electronic waste watchers are worried about the disposal of old televisions once the FCC regulations requiring a digital signal go into effect in Feb. 2009. While even small amounts of lead pose soil and drinking water contamination issues, a television may contain up to eight pounds of lead.

In addition to recycling your old television rather than throwing it away, you should also let recyclers handle your old cell phones and computers. Approximately 500 million cell phones are ready for disposal, says earth911.org. That translates to more than 300 thousand pounds of lead and thousands of more pounds of chemicals found in the most toxic portion of the cell phone: the battery. Recycling your cell means you are keeping lithium, cadmium and nickel out of the landfill. Recycling your laptop means mercury stays out, too, which reduces the probability of groundwater contamination.

In data released earlier this year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency reports that more than two million tons of computer equipment are discarded yearly in the U.S. Virtually that entire amount has gone into landfills.

RICHMOND, Ind. — Earlham College wants your dead computers. And old televisions. And cell phones.

Thanks to a partnership between Earlham and Indianapolis-based Recycle Force, LLC, the College is continuing its efforts to keep potentially hazardous electronic equipment out of landfills by sponsoring its second Computer Recycling Event on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Carpenter Hall parking lot.

Earlham donates the equipment for "de-manufacturing" by RecycleForce, LLC, an Indianapolis-based business dedicated to preventing discarded computer equipment containing toxic chemicals from entering the normal waste stream. The company employs many ex-offenders associated with Workforce, Inc., a nonprofit group committed to strengthening Indiana families by providing back-to-work programs for formerly incarcerated parents. The College donates thousands of pounds of its own decommissioned equipment to the group each year.

Because many components in computer equipment contain potentially harmful gases and metals, much of that electronic waste is categorized as "hazardous" by various federal and state environmental agencies. Though widely banned from public landfills, it's estimated that millions of tons of obsolete monitors, processing units, keyboards, printers and other devices still end up in the nation's general waste stream each year.

At Earlham's previous recycling event, the College and the community came together to fill a semi-trailer with approximately 12,000 pounds of equipment. Earlham's Director of Computing Services, Tom Steffes, says that the goal for the November event is double that amount.

Items which can be recycled at the event include desktop computers, laptops, monitors, printers, keyboards, peripherals, cables, televisions, cell phones, copiers and microwaves. A recycling fee of $10 per small load (such as a car) and $25 per large load (such as a pickup or larger) covers the cost of transporting the materials safely to the recycling facility in Indianapolis.

Contact:
Mark Blackmon, director of media relations
765/983-1256 — E-Mail Mark