We live in an interesting time right now. I can remember growing up in a house that a TV in the living room and that was it. Our phone hung from the wall with a long spindly cord attached to it and that was about the extent of the electronics in our possession.
Currently in my home I have 4 laptops, 5 TV’s, 3 iPhones, 2 VCR’s, 3 printers and a slew of other misfit electronics. Most of these items have been replaced but we’ve kept them lying around as if we are hosting a museum or hoping they will turn into a Transformer… I noticed the electronic heap while I was in my storage room, digging out the
Christmas Halloween decorations, and decided to finally rid myself of the mess.
In the past I would have just thrown them all in the garbage but if blogging has taught me anything, it’s that someone has always come up with a creative way to deal with things. Sure enough, I found the Ontario Electronic Stewardship, who have developed a way for you to recycle your old electronics so that materials such as gold, copper and other rare metals can be reused and kept out of a landfill.
The cool part is that you can punch in your postal code on their Recycle Your Electronics page and it’ll give you a list of the registered drop off locations. Places like Best Buy, Staples and Future Shop are on board and have bins right inside their front doors to make the drop offs very easy.
I’m also going to use this as an opportunity to teach my kids more about recycling by having them search the house for more electronics and bringing them to the drop off with me to explain what it is that will happen to all our old devices. I think they’ll appreciate knowing that some of this stuff will be going to help families and kids who otherwise wouldn’t afford it. I’ll just have to explain why daddy is keeping the old looking original NES system.
Because I am curious, I’ll leave you with this question. How many unused electronics do you have hanging around in your house right now?
Here is a fun video from the Ontario Electronic Stewardship!
Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in the #WhatsInYours campaign. The message is important and it actually got me off my butt and into action!