Household Hazardous Waste - Electronics

Curbside can collect electronics as part of the Door-to-Door program or as a separate home electronics collection program, fixed site collection or even from the corporate yard.

Virtually any item that contains a circuit board is considered by your state to be hazardous unless it is recycled. This includes common items such as CRT’s, and TV’s, computers, printers, fax machines and even clocks.

Go Green, let Curbside recycle your electronics

It may be safe to say that if the item uses a battery or plugs into an electrical outlet, it may be hazardous. If there are lead solder points, it is likely to be hazardous. Electronic items can be managed as Universal Waste, that is, stored for up to one year and shipped on a bill of lading that specifically states that the materials will be shipped for “recycling”. You are required to maintain records of all shipments to demonstrate that you have a program in place for the recycling of electronic waste.

When Curbside collects electronics, the materials are transported to a facility that disassembles the items and ships the components for final recycling.  No whole units are ever exported.

There are a number of firms that collect CRT’s, TV’s and computers for “recycling”. Many do so under the guise of using the state supported program described above. Unfortunately, instead of destroying the items through domestic recycling, some will sell old monitors and TV’s to third world countries where some of the less useful items can end up in a landfill.