Recycling is an easy way for all of us to help protect the environment and conserve natural resources. While recycling plastic, glass, and paper has been widely adopted in the United States, many people don’t recognize the importance of properly recycling their electronic waste (e-waste) or do not know what to do with unwanted electronics.

E-waste is the fastest growing segment of the municipal waste stream in the U.S. with over three million tons of electronics generated each year of which only 14% is recovered for recycling.

The rest typically ends up in landfills. Electronics should not be disposed of in one’s household trash because most contain heavy metals such as lead (an average older computer monitor, for example, may contain 4-7 lbs. of lead) batteries, mercury, and cadmium.

In observation of America Recycles Day on November 15, 2011, ECOvanta, a state-of-the-art recycling facility that properly recycles electronic waste such as computers, monitors, mobile phones, printers, and televisions, offers the following tips for handling consumer e-waste:

REUSE & RECYCLE

• First, figure out what you want to be done with the equipment. If you want to provide a community service and don’t have any data security needs, donating may be the way to go. If your equipment is not in working order or you want it destroyed for security reasons, you will want to have it demanufactured and recycled.

• Donating used (but still operating) electronics for reuse extends the life of valuable products before they need to be properly disposed. Before you donate, make sure the equipment works and someone can use it. Many organizations that accept donations may be limited in what they can repair/upgrade and put back into service, so ask first.

• Over 1,000 or more counties and municipalities across the U.S. offer computer and electronics collection programs as part of household hazardous waste collections, special events, or other arrangements. Depending on where you live and the amount of equipment you have, contact your county or municipality or go on their website to see when the next electronics recycling event will take place.

• State Departments of Environmental Protection websites are also a good resource to see who is a licensed electronics recycler within your state and where they are located.

• Some large box stores (online and off-line) also accept electronics for recycling whether you purchased the item from them or not. Some even offer credit rewards!

• Whether you decide to donate used electronics for reuse or turn components in for recycling, always remember to completely erase data from any electronics with a hard drive such as cell phones, smart phones, computers, and printers.

Recycling electronics helps reduce the environmental impact that would be generated while manufacturing a new product and the need to extract valuable and limited virgin resources from the earth. It also reduces the energy used in new product manufacturing. According to the U.S. EPA, recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 U.S. homes in a year

ECOvanta safely manages end-of-life electronics using a combination of manual disassembly and an automated shredding system to separate materials into commodities for recycling. The facility also offers secure destruction services for customers who require assured and certified destruction of their electronic equipment.

For more information on how to responsibly handle e-waste, please visit ecovanta.com.

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