As part of the ongoing RecycleMania contest, there will be an e-waste drive March 23 for all faculty, staff, students and community members to safely discard equipment with electrical or electronic components. Items accepted include unusable or obsolete computers, scanners, copiers, printers, cables and wires, cell phones, digital cameras, DVD players, VCRs and more. A complete list of acceptable items can be found here.
The drive will be held March 23 from 9 a.m. to noon on Juniper Road between Sherman and Raymond houses, and from 1 to 4 p.m. outside of Fribley Commons.
All e-waste contains valuable substances such as gold, silver and platinum, and toxic and hazardous substances such as lead, cadmium and beryllium. Approximately 300 and 400 million electronic or electrical items are discarded in the U.S. every year, but only 15 to 20 percent of those are recycled properly.
The university partners with RET3, a non-profit that refurbishes and de-manufactures e-waste for reuse and recycling. Staff and faculty members should fill out this form when they have e-waste to dispose of. It is important to keep all e-waste in secured areas to protect them from theft or destruction until RET3 can pick them up.
Last year, members of the university community recycled a total of 72,278 pounds of e-waste through RET3; so far this year, the university is on target to increase that by at least 25 percent.