3 Illogical Excuses People Often Use To Not Recycle E-Waste

26 December 2019
 Categories: Technology, Blog


Your laptop gets upgraded almost annually, you get a new phone just about every time Apple releases a new iPhone, and your tablets tend to last you a few years before you need another one. This is just ordinary, everyday life stuff in the modern technologically savvy world. All that tech-savviness of the population has led to an incredible need for e-waste recycling. Yet, many people make excuses as to why they never make sure their electronics are taken to a recycling center. 

Illogical Excuse: Electronic waste is hard to recycle. 

On the contrary, electronic waste is not at all hard to recycle no matter where you live. Multiple waste management companies accept electronic waste for recycling, so check with your local waste management company first. If they do not offer e-waste recycling, do a quick search on Google. Many places will come to your home and pick up your waste for free, and some online recycling centers will even send you a container to ship your items to them. 

Illogical Excuse: Recycling electronic waste generates privacy concerns. 

Of course, the hard drive on your computer, your old cell phone, and even your fax machine can have private data inside that you are afraid will fall in the wrong hands. However, it is far better to send your e-waste away with a recycler than to either leave it lying around or entrust it in a compacting dumpster. Recycling centers actually go to great lengths to destroy the sensitive data that is in the electronics you dispose of, and some will even instruct you on how to wipe everything out or destroy memory drives on your own. 

Illogical Excuse: Most electronic waste gets compacted to not much of anything anyway.

You have a wagon load of e-waste and you figure what does it really matter if you toss the stuff in a dumpster or haul it out to the curb—it will be compacted down to almost nothing anyway. If it was just you tossing out your e-waste, maybe your bit of waste would not be that big of a concern. However, there are people all over the world throwing electronics away in the regular trash on a daily basis. According to the New York Times, the U.S. managed to generate 6.9 million tons of e-waste in 2016. Unfortunately, this has led to astounding levels of e-waste that could have been recycled in American landfills. 

Reach out to companies that offer e-waste disposal to learn more. 


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