Hazardous electronic waste?

[Axtman]

My garbage can i getting full of blown/broken parts that I have removed from my amp projects. What type of parts should I separate out as hazardous electronic waste and what parts should just go in the garbage? Thanks!

[Axtman]

Well, to answer my question,. I called REPC, my local electronic disposal company. They said to bring bags of your waste down to them. They will sort it out and properly dispose of it for me!

[Jazz P Bass]

I was going to suggest that.
Glad to hear that they will take care of you.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Well, to answer my question,. I called REPC, my local electronic disposal company. They said to bring bags of your waste down to them. They will sort it out and properly dispose of it for me!

I'm impressed!

I sent the mighty Goog to find out more about REPC. Seattle and Pacific Northwest outfit, recycling computer & related gear. Goog revealed this too "The Electronic Product Recycling Law, Chapter 173-900 WAC, requires manufacturers of TVs, computers, and monitors to provide recycling services for these products at no cost. This service is for households, small businesses, charities, school districts, etc..." At no cost! fwiw the only recycle option I know of, upstate NY, is Best Buy. They take a wide variety of waste computer & related equipment, no big console TV/stereos from Grandma's house please, but they charge $30 to accept flat monitor screens. Some claptrap about "ooh there's mercury in them, toxic y'know, special rules, so pay up." Flatscreen TV's? "No biggie, just stack it in the bin." What's the difference - maybe someone here can enlighten us.

If REPC takes on your collection of demised caps, transformers, wire cuttings & whatnot, I'd say that's a big win. Let us know how it works out please!

[Bill Moore]

Just out of high school I got a job with an Admiral appliance dealer who kept several of us for delivery purposes. Before the days of recycling the "big ditch" that runs through town served as a dump, the next rain just washed things away. One day we had 5 CRTs to dispose of so we took them to the usual spot and started throwing them in the ditch, great fun, as they made noise when they hit the rocks. We soon heard voices cussing us in Spanish, seems the local "winetos" had spent the night close by, and thought someone was shooting!
Realizing we could have hurt someone we started looking over the edge before we dumped anything after that!

[The Dude]

When I was a small town youngster (long before anything was recycled), we used to go the the city dump ground and shoot out CRT's with a .22 rifle.

[Axtman]

What I like about REPC is they will take everything free of charge, though I do think they charge for microwaves for some reason. They will then test and possibly repair items. They will also sell accessories like cables, wall warts, etc. And finally, they will sell stuff as is for projects. Anything that can make a few bucks on they will sell before they have to sustainably scrap it.

[Mark Hammer]

Contacting local authorities i9s the best course of action. Capabilities for sorting and potentially rendering e-waste will vary by region, just as it varies for glass, metal, plastics, paper, etc.

[Mick Bailey]

.......but they charge $30 to accept flat monitor screens. Some claptrap about "ooh there's mercury in them, toxic y'know, special rules, so pay up." Flatscreen TV's? "No biggie, just stack it in the bin." What's the difference - maybe someone here can enlighten us?

Many of the older screens had cold-cathode tubes in them. You can tell those by the banded or inconsistent illumination and they're thicker/heavier than an LCD screen. The tubes use mercury vapour, but then so do CF bulbs and fluorescent tubes.

I had a fair quantity of liquid mercury to dispose of about 2 years ago and rang the local County Council offices. They arranged for a specialist disposal company to handle the waste and gave me clear instructions on how to pack and label the package. When I got to the local recycling centre to drop it off the staff were fully aware of me taking the mercury and there was no problem and no charge.

[tedmich]

big old CRTS can have 20% of their mass be leaded (Pb) funnel glass, and recycling these can involve wet sawing the front screen glass off (which introduces real issues for the workers!). Leaded glass leaches very slowly but its never a good idea to leave these outdoors/shattered. The old (tiny diameter) CCF tubes would have <1mg Hg (the big old tubes have ¬4mgs Hg) but mercury is a MUCH more potent toxin than leaded glass which is far less bio available.

Remember all the LED sneakers that went to the landfill? Most of them had Hg switches..

[Leo_Gnardo]

Remember all the LED sneakers that went to the landfill? Most of them had Hg switches..

Yikes! I was wondering what became of blinking sneakers. Was a long lived fad.

[Chuck H]

Yikes! I was wondering what became of blinking sneakers. Was a long lived fad.

Simply put, the more profitable a product presenting a biohazard is, the more leeway it will enjoy with respect to compliance. This is just business. And of course I hate it because it's too often the same regulations used to shut down small operations are ignored to allow huge corporate efforts. Some guy that was hardly going to make a dent is squelched into bankruptcy at the same time as a huge corporation poisons a whole towns water way beyond recovery because of the same manufacturing particulars.