By Ollie and Gloria Maier

We often mention the efforts being made to recycle electronic waste (e-waste) with all the cell phones, computers, TVs, etc. that become obsolete all too quickly.  Thus a couple of items in the latest Electronics Recycling News e-newsletter caught our eye.

“While online electronics trade-in programs become profligate, one company has come up with a novel in-store approach — an electronics trade-in kiosk.  The ecoATM ‘Automated eCycling Solution’ is a self-serve kiosk, where consumers place a small, unwanted electronic device, such as a cell phone, in a slot and the machine values the item, giving the consumer a trade-up coupon or a gift card good for the worth of the item.”

Although this first unit is in Nebraska, “Four more locations — San Diego, Texas, Washington State and Vermont — are to get a ecoATM by the end of the year, with a larger roll-out to take place next year.”

The success of such a kiosk might be measured in that “... it brought in 23 phones on the first day."   

These units are designed to take "mobile phones, personal music players, game systems, game DVDs and cartridges, notebook and desktop PCs, printers, digital cameras, flat displays, storage devices, GPS and more," although as one person commented “... it would be hard to stuff an old 286 [sic: computer] into the slot provided.”

We have also commented on the efforts of some companies to make their products less harmful to the environment. In an article rating some of the manufacturers, “Apple is singled out for almost entirely ridding its product line of bromine and chlorine — a move abedded by Apple chip supplier SST, which supplies the company, as well as other electronics manufacturers, with bromine-free chips.  Seagate, described as the world's largest disk drive maker, is lauded for creating new disk drives that no longer use chlorine- and bromine-based chemistries.”

(That’s good news... Let’s hope more companies take their lead.)

In a recent column we mentioned ‘Recycle Glass Week.’

As the president of the Glass Packaging Institute reported, "Recycle Glass Week exceeded our expectations of creating awareness for the benefits of choosing and recycling glass."

(If you recycled your glass bottles and jars during this time, thanks for helping make it a success.)

Switching to aluminum cans recycling, an article in Recycling Today reported “Alcoa North American Rolled Products Scrap Purchasing announced the Top Ten Scrap Suppliers.”

It was nice to note that two of the top ten were from Texas: Dallas and Waco.

Now, as we try to do each month, here is the report on how much the many concerned citizens of our area recycled at the Green Guy Recycling Services drop-off site. (Thanks, as always, Maria, for the data.)

Figures for last month (September) are:

Metals = 988,894 pounds

Cardboard = 131, 040 pounds

Paper = 67,640 pounds

Glass = 48,513 pounds

Plastic (jug & bottles) = 16,680 pounds

Also recycled last month were 538 gallons of used oil and 106 old tires.

(When we take things there to recycle, we are always proud of all the efforts Kyle and his workers take in trying to keep it neat and orderly... To him and his workers plus all of you who recycle there, keep up the good work!)

Till next week, do have a great one...

 

Gloria and Ollie are local citizens concerned with the environment and helping others. Ollie is a graduate of Leadership San Marcos and they both received higher education at TxState University and worked on staff before retiring. For questions or comments, call them at 353-7432 or e-mail them to omaier@TxState.edu.