County, Electric Sheep teams up to recycle e-waste on Earth Day
Electric Sheep destroys the hard drives to ensure that no personal information can be recovered from the discarded devices.
SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Occupying the desolate lot behind the Super Save Discount Food Store last Wednesday (April 22): A large dumpster filled with old Dell laptops, broken iPads, screen-less iMac computers and phones — all collected locally to recycle on Earth Day.
Taos County engaged Electric Sheep Computers, a computer and IT support business located at 622 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, Suite H, to help collect and sort through the copious amounts of donated e-waste. The goal is to reduce the number of electronic devices dumped in public areas, and to reduce e-waste in household trash that ends up in the Taos Regional Landfill.
“Studies show that every household in the United States has about 11 unused pieces of e-waste in each household,” Lorenzo Gutierrez, recycling coordinator for Taos County, said. “We’re tired of finding stuff like this thrown in the Arroyos, and [people] using their old computers for targets out in the forest. So this is one way for us to make sure that e-waste gets to a safe place and is disposed of properly.”
Set up behind folding tables, Electric Sheep technician Brennan Runzo, along with several Electric Sheep volunteers, pried open each electronic device using electronic tools, removing hard drives from laptops and desktop computers. They used metal levers to crush the recovered drives into smithereens, activity that was accompanied by a satisfying crunch of metal and glass.
Electric Sheep destroys the hard drives to ensure that no personal information can be recovered from the discarded devices. The team saved reusable parts and removed lithium and lead-acid batteries for recycling — and reduced the risk of lithium battery fires in solid waste trucks, household dumpsters and the landfill.
As the event drew to a close, Gutierrez threw the last few laptops and other electronics into a roll-off dumpster teeming with electronics. He said the team pulled about 30 cubic yards of e-waste — roughly 10,000 pounds — for recycling over the course of the day. The sorted materials were sent to a regional plant that recycles aluminum, batteries, engine oil, paper and glass.
Courtesy: www.taosnews.com