Dumping electronic waste for fun and profit
There really has never been a good way to recycle old electronics. They can’t be thrown into the trash, because electronics are built out of all kinds of compounds and heavy metals that seep into the ground and eventually into the ground water. The virtuous among us who bring electronics to recyclers actually aren’t doing any good either, since recyclers often extract the valuable metals – copper wiring, gold from the microchips – and then chuck the rest into the landfill.
So what to do? Sell it to Second Rotation, apparently. This company is trying to make a living buying your old electronics, refurbishing them and reselling them. They apparently can resell 90% of the gear they get. The rest they recycle. Are they giving it to the sleazy recyclers or good ones? I’ve got a call in to them to try and find out the deal. Still, if they can resell 90% of my old electronics, that’s at least two of the three gadgets we have in a drawer at home.
Very sad to see that our electronic stuff is not being recycled 100% when we do take the time to actually trek up to the recycle drop off at the land fill’s entrance. Not surprising though.
Thanks for the tip on Second Rotation. Great service. Too bad they don’t do desktop computers as well though. Maybe someday.
They’ve been expanding. Apparentlyt hey started as cell phones only.
That Foreign Affairs article bummed me out, too.