eDay – recycle your electronics

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 5th, 2010 - 28 comments
Categories: sustainability - Tags: ,

You’re reading this on a computer or smartphone / mobile device. Chances are you’ve been using such gadgets for some time now. If you’re anything like me you’ve thrown away a few over the years, wasting precious resources and adding to landfill pollution. Don’t make that mistake again! Tomorrow, Saturday, is an opportunity to recycle your electronic waste. From the eDay home page:

Welcome to eDay

Clean up New Zealand’s e-waste

Recycling electronic waste (e-waste) enables the recovery and reuse of valuable materials and ensures toxic materials are not buried in our landfills – so it’s better for our environment.

eDay is a drive-through recycling event which gives you the opportunity to recycle old computers or mobile phones in an environmentally sound way.

eDay 2009 saw over 16,430 cars drop off 83,536 items across the country. A total of 976 tonnes of e-waste was diverted from our landfills.

eDay 2010 is taking place on Saturday 6th November at over 40 centres across the country. Click here for details of your closest drop-off location.

Check out this list of the items that can and can’t be dropped off, and here to find the location and timing of your closest eDay centre. Then on Saturday, get out there and recycle!

28 comments on “eDay – recycle your electronics ”

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  1. zimmer 1
    5 November 2010 at 10:57 am

    [sorry you’re currently banned. — r0b]

  2. Carol 2
    5 November 2010 at 11:23 am

    I would love to, but can’t because I’m working. I wouldn’t mind if it was merely a NGO or voluntary effort. However, Nick Smith said this morning, on Nine-to-Noon, that the government had given funding to it, and he was urging everyone to take up this opportunity before the government takes it over and makes it user pays.

  3. felix 3
    5 November 2010 at 11:34 am

    No I don’t think I’ll be doing that. I’m sure the intention is noble and some good headline stats will be generated but the last thing anyone working at the coalface of the recycling industry needs is a massive extra quantity of any single resource all turning up on one day when you’ve still got all the usual quantities of everything else to process.

    Sure, encourage people to recycle e-waste but ffs encourage it all the time so proper systems can develop around it, not all on one day of the year which throws existing systems into chaos.

    • r0b 3.1
      5 November 2010 at 11:47 am

      Does it throw the existing system into chaos?

      Surely the organisers of eDay are well coordinated with recycling to make this work properly.

      Though I do agree that every day should be eDay. Some workplaces are improving.

      • felix 3.1.1
        5 November 2010 at 12:42 pm

        It depends on the set up. From what I can see the drop off points advertised are mostly existing recycling centres. A few of these already have systems in place for e-cycling but many don’t, and many of those are running at full capacity pretty much all the time.

        I may be jumping the gun a little as I don’t know the full story behind this particular program but I’m yet to see one of these type of campaigns that hasn’t been imposed from on high at a political/quango level with little-to-no consultation with the people who actually have to deal with it.

        • Maynard J 3.1.1.1
          6 November 2010 at 1:50 am

          We had an old computer and couldn not find a single place in Wellington that would take it.

          If those systems are developing, They need a little help. This event has gone on for quite a few years now, so if it were a problem I imagine it would not continue – I gather it’s pretty well-run though.

          • felix 3.1.1.1.1
            6 November 2010 at 3:33 pm

            I see that the organisers are working toward making this an ongoing year-round program with the annual day to raise awareness of it. Hopefully that should include Wellington.

      • Armchair Critic 3.1.2
        5 November 2010 at 2:05 pm

        Recycling it or letting Gerry Brownlee’s mates dig it up? Not a particularly dilemma. I suspect the reason that National favour mining is because there is more profit in it than there is in recycling.

    • Carol 3.2
      5 November 2010 at 11:49 am

      Nick Smith and an eday spokesperson were talking about the plans for dealing with re-cycling problems on Nine-toNoon today. Yes, there.s a lot to be sorted out, including getting changes in manufacturing to make things more re-cyclable. Smith says they are co-ordinating with some people taking a lead on e-recycling in Sth Australia. I wasn’t able to tell from that how well the systems will work for eday, from just hearing their interviews once.

  4. gingercrush 4
    5 November 2010 at 1:28 pm

    I would have thought re-use your current electronics until they’re absolutely obsolete. Of course all those that believe in global warming, most of them are fucking hypocrites and some of the worse emitters of greenhouse gases. Always upgrading and always replacing. The number of liberal fucking Labour and Greens members with brand new everything and grand holidays all over the place is pathetic.

    • Carol 4.1
      5 November 2010 at 1:32 pm

      And some of us do keep using stuff for years. I am currently using my first and only mobile phone, and only upgrade computers when it really becomes necessary.

      • Vicky32 4.1.1
        5 November 2010 at 10:07 pm

        Me also! When my brother got a new computer he passed the old one on to me, and I used it til it died. (It’s still here, I am hanging on to it, until my IT son has the time to scavenge it for parts..) I up-graded only because I had to, and I still have the two previous mobiles – one is still usable and the other will be… and can always become gifts for the kids in the family!
        Deb

        • Carol 4.1.1.1
          6 November 2010 at 7:09 am

          Yes, also I guess it helps to not get caught up in the hype & peer pressure for each new technological fix & toy. I am usually a late-adopter of any new toy/technology. Hence I was one of the last people in the developed world to buy a mobile phone. This usually means I wait and see what works, and/or is useful, don’t need to keep constantly updating, and usually when I buy a new/changing technology the price has dropped from when the technology was first launched.

  5. Draco T Bastard 5
    5 November 2010 at 1:49 pm

    I would but none of the three in Auckland are within walking distance.

    BTW, WTF are there only three places in Auckland?

  6. M 6
    5 November 2010 at 2:22 pm

    It’s a disease – I only replaced my tower when the old one was grunting and groaning with age (5 years) sounding like it was about to die. I kept the screen and speakers and the old tower now serves as a side table. People are so image obsessed, so scared they won’t be in the right circle and it’s just not with electronics – further austerity should focus the minds of the many as to what’s necessary.

  7. Sean Brooks 7
    6 November 2010 at 11:47 am

    Is that the event that the media worked out caused more environemtnal damage due to the number of people attending??

    • felix 7.1
      6 November 2010 at 3:40 pm

      No that’s something you just made up which bears no relation to the post you didn’t read.

      • Sean Brooks 7.1.1
        6 November 2010 at 10:44 pm

        FELIX:

        Google is your friend.

        • felix 7.1.1.1
          7 November 2010 at 9:41 am

          So use it instead of making thinly veiled assertions posing as asinine questions.

          (you quite clearly still haven’t read the post btw, despite commenting on it twice)

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