Recycling of E-Waste: An Easy Guide

You may think that you can just skip recycling electronic products and other electronics and toss any old printer, monitor, or a smartphone in the trash—but that would be a mistake. Those items are called e-waste, and they are an ever-growing problem in our landfills. Take this number as an example: We throw away 50 million tons of e-waste—each and every year. And the amount of tech we’re using is growing, which means the amount of monitors, printers, laptops, desktops, and other devices that we’re tossing is growing too.

It’s not only the landfills that are suffering because of that e-waste. All those tricky and hard-to-assemble devices have big and small amounts of items that shouldn’t even be in the landfills to begin with. Take batteries, to name just one: They contain heavy metals and toxic materials, which can eventually end up in the water supply. Cellphones are made with hazardous materials including arsenic and lead, which will also contaminate the soil and groundwater if not disposed off properly.

Every item like that has its own specific ways that those materials can be recovered. Many of them must be taken to a specific spot in your municipality that will help dispose of them properly so they can be taken apart and recycled. Get to know about e-waste recycling guidelines with this infographic.

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