Happy Earth Day Everyone! As the world is celebrating “going green” – We wanted to remind everyone why it’s important to recycle your electronics. Here’s 10 reasons:
- E-waste represents 2% of America’s trash in landfills, but it equals 70% of overall toxic waste (Mother Jones)
- 20 to 50 million metric tons of e-waste are disposed worldwide every year (United Nations)
- Americans dump cell phones containing over $60 million in gold/silver every year (Voakes, Greg)
- A large number of what is labeled as “e-waste” is actually not waste at all, but rather whole electronic equipment or parts that are readily marketable for reuse or can be recycled for materials recovery (EPA)
- Only 12.5% of e-waste is currently recycled (EPA)
- For every 1 million cell phones that are recycled, 35,274 lbs of copper, 772 lbs of silver, 75 lbs of gold, and 33 lbs of palladium can be recovered (EPA)
- Recycling 1 million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 U.S. homes in a year (EPA)
- E-waste is still the fastest growing municipal waste stream in America (EPA)
- It takes 530 lbs of fossil fuel, 48 lbs of chemicals, and 1.5 tons of water to manufacture one computer and monitor (Electronics TakeBack Coalition)
- Electronic items that are considered to be hazardous include, but are not limited to: Televisions and computer monitors that contain cathode ray tubes, LCD desktop monitors, LCD televisions, Plasma televisions, Portable DVD players with LCD screens (Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality)
Check out our video with our Tech Guru Brendan talking about today’s eWaste problem. If you live in the Sioux Falls area, you can bring your eWaste to the Household Hazardous waste facility for free! It will actually end up at the Bargain Bytes facility to be recycled responsibly by our parent company SEAM– who is certified to the highest environmental and security standards in the industry including R2, e-Stewards, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and is a member of NAID. If equipment comes in that is still in working order and holds some market value, you may even see it on our eBay store after it’s been securely wipes, thoroughly tested, and refurbished!