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Electronic waste recycling making me crazy!
Posted by
ampdoctor
on 05 May, 2014 00:51
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It's that time of year again around here....spring cleaning junk days! Pile your old busted up junk on the curb and waste disposal will take it away free of charge. Here's the hitch. NO ELECTRONIC WASTE! If you want to discard old computers, tv's or whatever it has to be brought to the electronic waste disposal center for recycling. If you try to dispose of it any other way or try to do some dumpster diving you can get get a hefty fine from the city. Go to our local drop off and you'll see printers, LCD tv's monitors, dvd players, CRT tv's, entire computers, etc. There's literally thousands of dollars worth of reclaimable hardware in these things that are just going to get sent to a compactor and sold off for pennies on the dollar.
So the question is; is it just me that gets really annoyed by this practice and moreover, how prolific has this practice become globally? Seems to me if people were actually concerned about the "green thing" they'd be in favor of people re-purposing all that stuff to the best of their ability.
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Look man it's just a bunch of junk. I mostly buy new parts.
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#2 Reply
Posted by
NiHaoMike
on 05 May, 2014 02:08
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What about put it up on Craigslist as a free item?
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#3 Reply
Posted by
KC0PPH
on 05 May, 2014 02:16
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Colorado State Law says that you cant dispose of electronics with your normal trash (what the trash company said to my father when he called up and bitched).
In addition our local place charges $20 to take a CRT TV...
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I have learned from experience that scrounging is just removing one pile of junk and making another.
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#5 Reply
Posted by
AlfBaz
on 05 May, 2014 02:22
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Our local "green" rubbish tip has multiple sections like green waste, timber, metal and household garbage. Out the front they have a small lot were they sell stuff. The 2 heavy duty ex-school benches in my lab came from there and were a steal for $50 delivered, the nice chap there who got to take the work truck home had to drive past my place on the way home so I'm guessing delivery is based on his mood on the day
I asked him why there wasn't more electrical junk for sale and he told me that anything with a mains lead had to be tested and tagged as safe by someone with a certified testing ticket which they didn't have. So it's most likely something to do with safety
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#6 Reply
Posted by
GreyWoolfe
on 05 May, 2014 02:32
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Around here, Friday is our 2nd trash day. It is also recycle day and the first day of yard/garage sales. If I have dead electronics that I don't want to do anything with, I put the stuff on the curb first thing in the morning. The "dumpster divers" take care of it pretty quickly. If not, I get with a fellow technician who has a recycle center close to him and takes the electronics for free. I have had people pick up jacked up computer cases. Makes my life easier.
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#7 Reply
Posted by
VK3DRB
on 05 May, 2014 02:54
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I have learnt "If in doubt, throw it out". That is, hoarding spare parts is a waste of real estate and a waste of time. Most places send the stuff to third world countries for recycling.
About 18 years ago, a well known PC manufacturer crushed about 10,000 very expensive unused high end laptops due to supply exceeding demand. They could have been put to far better use such as donating them to poor students in poor countries, but that is not in the interest of the shareholders.
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#8 Reply
Posted by
ampdoctor
on 05 May, 2014 11:27
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my last successful dumpster dive I managed to snag 40 power transistors(TO-3 packages and the sockets), opamps of every shape and size, rectifiers, linear regulators, heat sinks in several different sizes, step down transformers, a high power toroidal power transformer, several multiplexers, led drivers, molex connectors, gates, latches, shift registers, half a dozen schmitt inverters, ganged rotary and push button switches from an old console tv. maybe 100 momentary switches, computer cases and power supplies, an entire f'in guitar amplifier minus the speaker! Enough s**t to keep me busy at the bench for a year!
This was just what I snagged in one day. And look at all the stuff Dave got from his dumpster dives. I'm sure most of what got pitched could have been easily repaired and now it's going to wind up as landfill somewhere. There's tons of stuff that could be either donated to schools maker groups or whatever that could be put to good use either through repurposing the components or teaching students any number of different repair skills. It just seems like such a complete waste of resources.
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#9 Reply
Posted by
XOIIO
on 05 May, 2014 11:34
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yeah, it sucks, never had curbside stuff but often free things on kijiji/craigslist, a lot less now that sarcan started taking stuff
I used to work at a volunteer computer store that helped out kids who needed computers for school, and they got loads of stuff from the university, sometimes battery backups, analog scopes, big rack power supplies and blade servers, but they closed, and now all that stuff goes to an auction house
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#10 Reply
Posted by
ampdoctor
on 05 May, 2014 11:51
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Over here it doesn't even go to an auction house. they put it through a big grinder and turn it into mulch, compact it and sell it by the pound to scrap recyclers. people will bin a computer just because it's an old single core intel or athlon with a gig of pc3200 ram and a 20 gig hard drive just because it's not the latest and greatest quad core system. There are people in this world that wish they had something like that. If you don't load them up with bloated trendy software and apps they'll run just fine!
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#11 Reply
Posted by
steve30
on 05 May, 2014 12:02
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What frustrates me is that there is so much stuff to throw out/recycle in the first place.
It suggests at
a) Things aren't built to last, or
b) Electronics are merely fashion accessories.
It does have the advantage that people like me can often get perfectly good things for free. Most of my electronic stuff is either old or second hand.
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#12 Reply
Posted by
madires
on 05 May, 2014 12:05
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It's similar over here. We have to bring e-junk to the local municipal junk yard, but it's free. Actually it's pre-paid by the vendor/importer and you pay for that when buying stuff. The whole e-junk disposal and recycling became big business and the municipal junk yard won't let you take something out of the containers. So you have to get your hands on e-junk before it goes to the junk yard.
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#13 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 05 May, 2014 12:16
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In addition our local place charges $20 to take a CRT TV...
Do you have problems with fly tipping where you live?
Even here in the UK where it's free to dispose of most domestic waste, they still charge businesses and that's led to piles of junk appearing in fields and it's the farmers who have to pick up the bill.
As far as scavenging is concerned: yes I've done it in the past but I found I was accumulating junk so now I throw most things out or give them away, unless I know I need a certain component.
One problem with trash picking components is reliability: it's not worth spending hours fault finding if it's caused by a bad part scavenged from somewhere.
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#14 Reply
Posted by
madires
on 05 May, 2014 12:35
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It suggests at
a) Things aren't built to last, or
b) Electronics are merely fashion accessories.
I'd add also
c) Things are built to be cheap.
d) You're ment to throw broken stuff away and not to repair it.
Someone in my family got an inexpensive cordless drill with two batteries. The charger died and no spare is available. Luckily just the transformer was broken (primary winding, maybe overtemperature protection, not feasable to repair), but it got a uncommon secondary voltage. So I took a 12V PSU out of the junk box and added a LM2577. Problem solved! Otherwise we would have thown away a perfectly fine drill.
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The only thing I would say is that if something is a power hog, like and old plasma, it is better off being destroyed than reused.
You could end up wasting more resources by keeping something inefficient running.
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#16 Reply
Posted by
calexanian
on 05 May, 2014 22:54
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Here is a clip from electronic waste recyclers here in fresno. Certain types of waste they take for free on certain days, otherwise as a business it costs us about ten cents a pound to drop off scrap there. We strip out as much plastic and metal as we can to get the weight down before it goes there. Then in the shredder it goes. Most of it goes to china for processing cause we cant use the recovery leaching chemicals here in the states. Most of it just goes in the landfill over there. Out of sight, out of mind. And that place gets all the high fives and acolades the environmental groups can heap on them. Assholes. When you walk in to pay your tipping fees there is a ten foor tall photo of the owner shaking hands with president obama dedicating this "Green" recyceling center! All freaking hypocrisy.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/EKEhUYBkfWI
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#17 Reply
Posted by
calexanian
on 05 May, 2014 22:59
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Here is another facility.
[url]https://www.youtube.com/embed/EKEhUYBkfWI/url]
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#18 Reply
Posted by
electrolux
on 06 May, 2014 08:51
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Stick them on the EEvblog as FREE item or on freecycle
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#19 Reply
Posted by
TVman
on 07 May, 2014 03:07
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Stick them on the EEvblog as FREE item or on freecycle
BINGO! Someone is thinking!
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#20 Reply
Posted by
jh15
on 07 May, 2014 04:03
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There is a town nearby, not my own, unfortunately, that had a good thing going.
you brin your stuff there, there is a little shed to put books and things in, and a large space to dump your stuff onto. once a week they would buldoze the area. In the meantime people would drive up, take their stuff out, and others "dropping by" could pick up the stuf. Several times I would see a dumper come out of their car: here is a new cordless phone we don't need, a set of dishes, etc.
My friend got several B&O turntables sold within hours on craigslist, and get this:
Acoustic research AR-1 loudspeaker, he re sold it to someone many states away for 850.00 Of course we set it up on an amp, and they wanted to be sure it was a ge tweeter, etc.
Then campers on lawn chairs arrived , so now they say no loitering, and stuff is bulldozed every night. better than no dump picking at all I guess.
"fight safety overreach" omg it runs on electricity, prove it is safe before you reuse it law...
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#21 Reply
Posted by
calexanian
on 07 May, 2014 05:57
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There is a town nearby, not my own, unfortunately, that had a good thing going.
you brin your stuff there, there is a little shed to put books and things in, and a large space to dump your stuff onto. once a week they would buldoze the area. In the meantime people would drive up, take their stuff out, and others "dropping by" could pick up the stuf. Several times I would see a dumper come out of their car: here is a new cordless phone we don't need, a set of dishes, etc.
My friend got several B&O turntables sold within hours on craigslist, and get this:
Acoustic research AR-1 loudspeaker, he re sold it to someone many states away for 850.00 Of course we set it up on an amp, and they wanted to be sure it was a ge tweeter, etc.
Then campers on lawn chairs arrived , so now they say no loitering, and stuff is bulldozed every night. better than no dump picking at all I guess.
"fight safety overreach" omg it runs on electricity, prove it is safe before you reuse it law...
Watch the Top Gear caravanning episode. They go to a Tip and its freaking unbelievable! Brand new stuff people are just tossing out cause its dusty!
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#22 Reply
Posted by
TVman
on 08 May, 2014 02:21
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Here is a clip from electronic waste recyclers here in fresno. Certain types of waste they take for free on certain days, otherwise as a business it costs us about ten cents a pound to drop off scrap there. We strip out as much plastic and metal as we can to get the weight down before it goes there. Then in the shredder it goes. Most of it goes to china for processing cause we cant use the recovery leaching chemicals here in the states. Most of it just goes in the landfill over there. Out of sight, out of mind. And that place gets all the high fives and acolades the environmental groups can heap on them. Assholes. When you walk in to pay your tipping fees there is a ten foor tall photo of the owner shaking hands with president obama dedicating this "Green" recyceling center! All freaking hypocrisy.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/EKEhUYBkfWI
That video made me cry.
sigh.....
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#23 Reply
Posted by
aroby
on 08 May, 2014 02:59
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There's an electronics recycler down the road from me. They'll sell you stuff if they have it. I got a brand new Sun server rack complete with the power sequencers and power distribution from them for $200! Took 4 guys to get it in the house and into the basement - it weighs about 400lbs. You could have a field day in their warehouse - they are overflowing with crates of computer equipment.
Anthony
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#24 Reply
Posted by
TVman
on 08 May, 2014 03:10
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There's an electronics recycler down the road from me. They'll sell you stuff if they have it. I got a brand new Sun server rack complete with the power sequencers and power distribution from them for $200! Took 4 guys to get it in the house and into the basement - it weighs about 400lbs. You could have a field day in their warehouse - they are overflowing with crates of computer equipment.
Anthony
Electronics candy store?
It would be so nice to see an electronic surplus store in South Dakota.
BESIDES Radioshack!