A Safe Way to Get Rid of Electronic Waste

Old, unwanted and broken electronics are littered across landfills, sitting on top of massive piles of plastic bottles and textiles. The main issue with this is that electronic waste shouldn’t be tossed away with the week’s garbage. It should be recycled.

Electronic Waste and the Environment

Landfills around the world are filled with electronic waste. Researchers predict that the world will have more than 50 million tons of e-waste by the end of this year and that the number will continue to grow until there are serious changes in public policy and manufacturing.

The reason why electronic waste is a significant problem is that it often contains toxic materials that have the potential to damage the surrounding environment:

• Lead
• Cadmium
• Brominated flame retardants
• Beryllium
• Chromium

These toxic materials can seep into a landfill’s soil and any surrounding groundwater. They will also contaminate the garbage that is in their vicinity.

How to Dispose of Electronic Waste

So, if you can’t put your old electronics into the garbage, what can you do? The best solution is to go to an electronic waste recycling facility to dispose of the components in a way that doesn’t harm the environment.

Go to a website like CanadaIron.com to see how a local scrapyard commits to e-waste recycling so that community members can safely throw out their items and get paid for making the eco-friendly choice. This encourages people to commit to the chore, instead of taking the easy route by ignoring their garbage collection rules and shoving their electronics away with the rest of their trash.

The recycling facility is a member of the Ontario Electronic Stewardship Program, which is committed to keeping e-waste out of the province’s landfills. They have dedicated themselves to this purpose for the past 10 years.

How to Reduce Electronic Waste

Recycling e-waste isn’t the only solution to the worldwide issue. Reducing electronic disposal is also a noble goal to aspire towards.

Consumers are frequently encouraged to throw out their electronics to upgrade to the newest models — sometimes, they are told to look for an upgrade after a single year. They are pushed to keep up with the latest tech trends and pressured to buy the latest smartphones, laptops and other gadgets. This consumerist cycle contributes to the massive amounts of e-waste. People need to question their desire for the newest tech to reach the market and make more responsible shopping decisions.

Electronics companies are also to blame for this wasteful attitude. They push their new products constantly. They have expensive repair services, making it more financially responsible to replace the product than paying to fix it. Some companies like Apple fight for the right to repair to make sure that customers can’t look for third-party repairs that will cost them less.

Making repairs easy, affordable and accessible could drastically reduce the contribution to e-waste.

The clear solution to the e-waste problem is to respond with the three R’s: reducing, re-using and recycling. These simple strategies could remove toxic waste from landfills far and wide, completely changing the face of the planet.

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