“The average family has 80 pieces of electronic waste around their home”. – The Verge

 

“Each US family trashes the equivalent of 400 iphones worth of E-waste a year.”– National Geographic

 

We must be different right? We recycle Universal Waste for a living. So we tasked one of our employees to look in their own home and see how much electronic waste they could find. The picture above is just a portion of what they dug up. They found 2 smartphones, 1 fax machine, 3 old game consoles, 1 VCR/DVD player, 1 broken surround sound system, 2 old digital cameras, 2 camcorders, 1 tablet, 1 eReader, 2 laptops, 1 satellite radio, and 1 cable modem. That’s not to mention what they estimated as hundreds of feet of unused electronic cables, plugs, and chargers. “It was really discouraging. I recycled a bunch of electronics last year. I thought I was on top of my E-Waste.” our employee said. It’s estimated that last year approximately “54 million tons of electronic waste was discarded” with an estimated $10 billion in precious metals lost to landfill.These devices also contain semi-precious metals, and rare earth elements that are in short supply. Manufacturers actually need these resources to produce other electronics and they have to come from somewhere. So that broken device is really doing no one any good in the back of a drawer or on a basement shelf. E-Waste also contains toxic substances as well that we don’t want entering our waste stream. So if you have employees returning to work after working from home, why not let them bring in some of their old electronics? Consumers don’t handle their universal waste as effectively as a business can and the supply chain needs those resources locked away in your electronic waste.

 

 

For more information about universal waste
or to start your recycling program contact us
877.822.4733
service@nlr-green.com