Recycling Beyond the Bin
You Might Be Done with It, But That Doesn’t Mean Everybody Is
By Bruce Saller
ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR
There are a lot of local businesses in our area that recycle items that can’t be put in curbside recycling bins.
Rappahannock Goodwill Industries accepts electronic items in any condition: desktops, monitors, laptops, tablets, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, speakers, cords, cables, webcams, cell phones, internal and external hard drives. They recommend that you delete all personal data yourself, but they’ll check to make sure, and delete it for you if you forget.
Staples accepts electronics, ink and toner cartridges, backpacks & lunch bags, binders & zipper binders (empty), crayons & colored pencils, glue sticks & bottles (empty), pencils & pencil pouches, pens, markers & highlighters, rulers & drafting tools, luggage, phone cases, tablet & eReader cases, smart watch bands and SodaStream CO2 cylinders.
Batteries Plus takes most types of batteries, light bulbs, and some small electronics.
Most grocery stores accept #2 and #4 plastics which include grocery and produce bags, bread bags, plastic stretch wraps, newspaper bags, popped bubble wrap and air pillows, wraps around paper products (paper towels, toilet paper, diapers, etc.), and bulk cereal bags.
Best Buy takes most electronics, small appliances, and camera equipment.
You can go to earth911.com to find places to recycle other items in our area. Always best to keep recyclable items out of our landfills.
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Bruce Saller is a retired systems engineer with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.
A couple of comments:
A more thorough "investigation" of recycling is needed. For example, what happens to all the electronics that we take to Staples, RGI, Best Buy? Does it really get recycled, as in, the various piece parts turned into new stuff? I'm betting not. Probably bundled and sent to Bangladesh. Second, the author sounds like he has not read the book "The Problem with Plastic." He should. Plastics recycling is negligible; it doesn't happen like we think. Only #'s 1 (PETE drink containers) and 2 (HDPE milk jugs) get recycled and then no more than 10%. Studies using GPS tracking devices have shown that most plastic bag "recycling" results in the the bags ending up in landfills.
Please: more research. The last thing we need is more helpful hints for taking actions that make us feel good but don't accomplish anything.