January 28
Keeping e-waste out of landfill to create a circular economy
Four days ago I picked up a screen that had been dumped in the bush on my favourite walk. Today, for my new action for a Year in a Day, I took it to the Katoomba Resource Recovery & Waste Management Facility. Thanks to TechCollect, it’s FREE to drop off all of the following e-waste for recycling (you can drop off in Blaxland and lots of other centres too).
- Personal and laptop computers and all cables
- Tablets, notebooks and palmtops
- Computer monitors and parts (e.g. internal hard drives and CD drives)
- Computer peripherals and accessories (e.g. mice, keyboards, web cameras, USBs)
- Printers, faxes, scanners and multi-functional devices
- All televisions*
TechCollect is lobbying to create a Circular Economy where everything is a resource and nothing is waste! They say that at least 90% of all materials recovered from the e-waste are reintroduced as raw materials in the manufacture of new products.
Their website has resources for teachers and the facts they share are quite mindblowing:
- More than 50 million tonnes of e-waste is generated globally each year.
- Electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world.
- Aussies trash 22 million printers, keyboards, mice and peripherals a year.
- Australians have recycled enough e-waste through the TechCollect program to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the steel alone!
I’m on a mission now to share this information as widely as I can so no one feels a need to dump this toxic waste into our beautiful bushland!
It’s free, it’s easy … it was no effort at all.
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1 Comment
Meredith · 30/01/2022 at 12:51 pm
I also took an action to keep something out of landfill. My son very recently got a pair of Keen hiking sandals, and within a week the plastic bit at the end of the elastic lace had broken. I was trying to figure out when I’d be able to return them to the shop for a replacement, and suddenly realised that if we returned them to the shop they’d most likely just be tossed out. It seemed like such a huge waste for one little broken piece of plastic. So instead a rang Keen and they were incredibly helpful and have posted out a replacement piece with instructions on how to fix it. I feel so grateful that this brand has the awareness to provide such a simple and impactful service, and also so pleased that we’ve managed to keep a pair of perfectly good shoes out of landfill and we saved an extra car trip.