Recycle This!

I consider myself a pretty Eco-minded guy. I recycle my household plastics, cans and paper and avoid as much as I can to not contribute to polluting the ground or air. I won't buy anything in a '7' plastic container because reports show that more carcinogens leak into the food product than any other type of plastic. Hey, bottom line is I try to do the right thing and recycle.

Now, you would think that because state and federal governments want people to recycle and not pollute the Earth, that they would somehow promote recycling businesses and make it easier for people to recycle those batteries, cans of paint, old computers, etc.

So I had these old computers that I wanted to recycle. I've seen the reports that computers have mercury and other heavy metals that, if they find their way into a landfill, could contaminate ground water. I read this article about recycling and it gives a bunch of web sites to go to. The first one I go to is Earth911.org. It seemed the Staples not too far from me recycled computers. Great! I gather up the three old computers I had and drive them to Staples. Bring them in and set them up on the counter only to find out that Staples only accepts computers that have Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating systems, the two most recent operating systems at that time. According to the web site, Staples recycled computers period.

I thought about it a little later and realized that Staples wasn't recycling anything. They were refurbishing and reselling computers that were given to them, which is why they wanted the two most recent operating systems.

I let Earth911.org know what I encountered and they said they would check into it. As of right now, the web site shows that only the Staples stores in Southbury, Watertown and Danbury take computers for recycling. I called the Southbury store and they confirmed that they except any computer for recycling. Obviously, something has changed since I brought my old computers to Staples a couple years ago.

At that time, places like Staples and Best Buy also charged you $10 to "recycle" a monitor. My thought was, "Wait a minute. I'm trying to do the right thing by recycling and you want me to pay you for recycling my monitor?? You should be paying me!!" From what I can see today, recycling things at Best Buy is now free, as it should be. Check out this video to find out what happens to your stuff when you bring it to Best Buy!

As for other things like batteries, auto fluids, oil-based paints and such need to be brought to the Household Hazardous Waste facility and they're only open on Saturdays from 9-noon from mid-May until October. Personally, I think they can do a little better in this area. I'm not sure how many people use this facility but having it open year-round would certainly encourage more people to recycle.

And speaking of recycling, I'll end off with this video. Brrrr.