All electronics contain hazardous materials that must be disposed of in a safe way to avoid ending up in the air or water. So the University of Richmond has partnered with other universities throughout Virginia to ensure proper disposal of "e-waste."
The Richmond campus hosted an e-waste recycling event Oct. 11-13, collecting about 250,000 pounds of computers, keyboards and other electronics. Organizers hope the event will be the first of many for the university.
"E-waste," as defined by the University of Richmond's Web site, is the popular name for consumer and business electronic equipment that has outlived its usefulness. Researchers estimate that nearly 75 percent of all electronic waste is in storage.
The "e-waste" program started when a computer manufacturing company created the event with Hollins University in Roanoke. Hollins officials then decided to take the program statewide, and they invited the University of Richmond, Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech to join.
Metech International, a company that specializes in the handling of electronic waste, was brought in to manage the proper collection of waste and the disposal of the materials. Metech serves some of the world's leading corporations.
The October event was a big success, said Caitlin Sasser, an administrative coordinator at the University of Richmond.
"The statewide goal was 200,000 pounds of recycled electronic waste, and the folks at Metech estimated that we probably had 250,000 pounds just at the Richmond event alone," she said.
All told, about 655,000 pounds of e-waste was collected at the recycling events held in October by Hollins University, the University of Richmond, ODU and Virginia Tech, estimated Greg Henderson, technology director at Hollins.
"The response to our call for e-waste from businesses, schools and households was overwhelming," he said.
Usually, when people want to recycle their electronic waste, they must pay a fee – typically between $5 and $10, Sasser said.
What makes this program special is that Richmond business, schools and residents could dispose of their electronics for free.
The computer manufacturing company, which asked to remain anonymous, paid for the recycling. Before such items as computers are recycled, Metech International promised to permanently and securely destroy all data.
If you missed the event at the University of Richmond campus, Sasser said St. Christopher's School, 711 St. Christopher's Road, also holds an annual event of this nature.
The University of Richmond accepted e-waste from local businesses, schools and colleges on Oct. 11 and 12 at Robins Center parking lot.
Community residents could drop off their e-waste on Oct. 13 at the Modlin Center parking lot.
At the collection sites, workers in white T-shirts directed each vehicle making a delivery through a maze of orange traffic cones. More workers removed all electronics for disposal. Then they were loaded onto a crate, and a forklift loaded it into a parked white trailer.
Sasser said this was one of the biggest events that Metech has been part of.
"The best part is that we kept a quarter of a million pounds of potentially hazardous electronic waste out of Virginia landfills," Sasser said.
w For more information, see the University of Richmond's Web page about e-waste recycling at http://is.richmond.edu/ewaste/. Items accepted at the university's e-waste event included: Cables, CD-ROM and DVD drives, CPUs and CPU displays, hubs, keyboards, laptops, LCD displays, memory, mice, monitors, routers, servers, software, speakers, switches, UPS systems, wires, cell phones, pagers, PDAs, two-way radios, camcorders, cameras, projection televisions, radios, stereos, tape players, televisions, VCRs, adding machines, electronics in wood cabinets, fax machines, game systems, photocopiers, printers, scanners, surge protectors, telephones and typewriters.
Michelle Antogiovanni is a student at Virginia Commonwealth University.