Dealing With the Computer & Battery Recycling Dilemma : Texxors.com

Dealing With the Computer & Battery Recycling Dilemma

March 29, 2007 Posted by Jeff in : Tips , trackback, Email this post

We’re all trying in our own little way to save the earth. Some of us buy a hybrid car (cause electricity comes from magic, no pollutive by products there, huh?), some of us try to be less wasteful in other ways. My contribution? I have a cardboard file box full of old batteries. Some are rechargeable laptop batteries that refuse to charge, some are old cell phone batteries, some are those little mercury button cells from various electronic gadgets, laser pointers, etc. Regardless, I have a lot of old batteries. Why? My conscious won’t allow me to throw these old batteries in the regular trash, and another reason? I have no idea where the hell to dispose of these safely. Now that my wife is bugging me to get rid of stuff, I had to take positive steps.

One day I decided to look on the internet for battery disposal places. I thought I found one around the corner from where I work. I even looked it up and printed out a mapquest map. I left 15 mins early one day to swing by there. Guess what? It was a vacant lot. I could tell there was once some kind of building there, but no place to leave old batteries. (Although a vacant lot is an ideal place for some people to leave this kind of stuff.) There was an old couch someone dropped by, I could put the box on the old couch. Nahh.. I couldn’t live with myself.

Recycling is a great thing, and I’m all for it, but It’s a matter of convenience. If it was more convenient, I think less of this stuff would wind up in our landfills. Well, lately, more resources are popping up on the net.

Here are two helpful resources I’ve collected for finding recyclers of this kind of stuff in your area:

For Batteries:
The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC)at: http://www.rbrc.org/call2recycle/dropoff/index.php
(Yes that’s “Al Borland” from tv’s “Home Improvement” on the website.)

For Computers, Monitors, and other Electrical items:
National Recycling Coalition Electronics Recycling Database:
http://www.nrc-recycle.org/resources/electronics/policy.htm

Now If I could just remember to put this stuff in the car and take it to one of these places.