Community recycling services.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Environmental Services

Remember how exciting it was in 2005 to plug in a new Dell XPS 400, with its 200GB capacity hard drive and 1GB memory? Or the iMac Core 2 Duo (with Intel inside) that replaced it two years later? Not to mention the steady stream of iPhones, iPods, iPads, Androids, laptops, tablets, and phablets that emptied everyone's wallets one month only to gather dust the next year when they were rendered obsolete by the newest gadget or operating system.

Throw in a bulky, gazillion-pound cathode-ray television set and all of the peripheral printers, scanners, and fax machines, and there's a veritable stew of outmoded electronics sitting in office closets.

But then what? Are antique TS-80s tossed in the trash? According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 2 percent of the solid waste stream is made up of electronics. However, that's a trend that may be starting to change in Alaska as businesses dedicated to recycling e-waste have heightened their profile. When it comes down to it, computers are bad trash.

"A lot of it doesn't compost down naturally," says Gary Smith, administrator of logistics for e-waste recycler Total Reclaim, Inc. "It doesn't belong in a landfill. You've got lead. You've got cadmium--all kinds of weird stuff in there. There's mercury sometimes. Plastics have fire retardants that are hazardous."

Electronic Waste

Cathode-ray tube monitors contain between four and eight pounds of lead. Flatscreen TVs have less lead, but many contain mercury. About 70 percent of the heavy metals found in US landfills come from electronic waste, according to one study.

Electronics also contain precious and non-precious metals.

They have significant amounts of gold, silver, and copper. Cases can be broken down to raw plastic and raw metal. In fact, the EPA estimates that for every 1 million cell phones that are recycled, 35,274 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered. The US Geological Survey estimates "one metric ton of electronic scrap from personal computers contains more gold than that recovered from seventeen tons of gold ore."

There may be gold in that six-year-old flip-phone, but the logistics of getting to it can be daunting.

Do-It-Yourself Recycling

In Alaska, recycling is available in most communities, but residents have to do most of the legwork themselves. Anchorage residents can put their recyclables in curbside containers, but that option isn't widespread in communities such as Fairbanks, says Green Star of Interior Alaska Executive Director Becca Brado.

"At the moment it's a bit of a shotgun approach," she says. "There's not one centrally located recycle facility. The [Fairbanks North Star Borough] assembly has already paid for a study to understand the cost and what we need in the borough. We're hoping within three to five years...