Electronics manufacturers are required by law to take back their products for recycling when consumers are done with them. But figuring out how to turn a product over for recycling – and how to get it there – is the job of the consumer.
Consumers can look up the drop-off locations for a given manufacturer on The New York Department of Environmental Conservation website (PDF).
Some companies and nonprofits also offer free e-waste recycling:
• Goodwill accepts computers and peripherals (keyboard, mice, etc.) of any brand. Some locations also accept TVs. The Salvation Army will also take any product by any brand.
• The Lower East Side Ecology Center opened a warehouse by the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn earlier this year. They accept any e-waste, regardless of manufacturer, and host one-day collection events throughout the city.
• At Best Buy, consumers can drop off up to three items per household per day, regardless of manufacturer, though there can be limitations on size.
• The 4th Bin will pick up e-waste from consumers and businesses for a fee, typically between $10 and $125.
• The non-profit Basil Action Network runs a program to evaluate the standards and ethics of e-waste recyclers. Their website offers a list of companies that have achieved their e-Stewart certification.
• For more information on drop-off locations, see the city's site.
A separate state law requires that all cell phone service providers accept cell phones for reuse or recycling.
4th Bin co-founders Michael Deutsch and John Kirsch load e-waste into a rented U-Haul truck. They weigh and inventory each item before trucking it to their Harlem facility, where it is sorted by type and prepared for pick-up by Mount Vernon-based We Recycle!, a recycler that deals exclusively with e-waste.
(Tracey Samuelson)
Kirsch helps unload e-waste at the company’s storage facility in Harlem. The items — including a Gateway computer from the New School, tagged with a yellow sticker — were collected from nine different pick-up locations and will be grouped by type to prepare for recycling.
(Tracey Samuelson)
Inside 4th Bin’s Harlem storage facility, e-waste is grouped by type and prepared for recycling.
(Tracey Samuelson)
Michael Deutsch, right, straddles an old Gateway computer tower in his company’s Harlem storage facility, beside operations manager Aristides Baez, left. WNYC tagged the computer with a yellow sticker in order to follow it through the recycling process.
(Tracey Samuelson)
In the We Recycle! warehouse in Mount Vernon, N.Y., the first stop in the recycling process for this Gateway computer is the harvest department. Robert Marcial, a disassembly technician, removes the machine’s circuit boards.
(Tracey Samuelson)
