In any household, there comes a time when your kitchen or bedroom appliances reach their endpoint. Many of us, get new ones to replace them or get them fixed by hiring an electrician. Unfortunately, the majority of us do the former – get rid of it to replace it with another new one. You might have heard of electronics recycling.
The electronic industries have a tremendous influence in modern societies nowadays and have been around for decades. With new and improved items hitting store shelves every year, old ones go out the window without a second glance. Every household will have at least one type of item on its premises.
If you’re wondering what type of goods comprise as electronic, anything from your kettle to your toaster, and mobile phone, is considered a common electronic item. From the smallest component to the largest one, if it runs on batteries or electricity it is included in this category.
All of these things need to be carefully handled once it reaches their expiry date. According to Wikipedia, there are different types such as digital, microelectronic items, audio series and more can be found on their website.
The reason for this article is to highlight the importance of recycling these objects, so let’s dive right in, shall we?
3 Great Considerations of Recycling Electrical Things
It is economically beneficial: if you didn’t know that recycling can be beneficial to the economy, keep reading. Did you know that when manufacturers create consumer goods made from recycled materials, that it uses less water, energy and create less pollution?
As per the information made available by the U.S. Environmental Agency, over 80 million tons of waste has been disposed of since 2014. This includes things like plastics, metal, paper, electronics and glass to name a few: https://blog.arcadia.com/everyday-products-made-from-recycled-materials/
It is hard to believe that this is the amount of waste produced from people throwing out their belongings in the bin, even if it is just one microchip or motherboard, it has an impact. Having these recycled instead, by throwing them in the right facilities or taking them to the recycling factories or outlets in your local area, can help you to lend a helping hand towards reducing production costs, as goods then don’t need to be created from scratch.
It leads to a cleaner environment: many of these types of goods are made with harmful metals, plastics and chemicals. Some of the most toxic chemicals found in electronic goods, such as mercury, certain types of phthalates and lead, can cause havoc to the environment when left untreated and exposed.
It not only impacts negatively on the environment but also on human health. If people or animals come into direct contact with them it can cause serious issues such as certain types of cancers, and respiratory or nervous system diseases that are irreversible for some. The lifestyle of throwing away things has had a greater impact on the environment than we think.
Reselling and reusing: when things are thrown away in the wrong way i.e. in your garbage disposal or trash can, the chances of them being used again is nil. However, when they are sold to second-hand shops or recycled into something new or reusable, it helps to minimize wastage. Components can be re-utilized in various ways once they are broken down.
Sometimes these mechanisms can be re-used without having to create new ones and can be placed into new items, as is. Almost 80% of common electrical items can be recycled, you just need to know where to take them.
The big names such as Apple have their recycling bins or factories, however, if you need to get rid of other things, typically every local region would have facilities to do this for you and places such as Albuquerque computer & electronics recycling co is one of them.
There are various drop-off locations that you can find online by searching and saving yourself the trouble of having to throw them in your garbage bins.
We hope the above information can help you to do your bit for the environment and economy and encourage you to live in a more sustainable way for the immediate world as well as the world of the future.
