Serendipity35

I remember being a high school student for the first Earth Day. It was a big cultural event. In my mind it blurred together with anti-war protests that were also going on around me. We would change the world.

I like a lot of the ideas that appear on the Earth 911 site and blog because I like the idea of Earth day being celebrated for more than a day.

Electronic devices make up 70 percent of the toxic waste in our landfills. That is scary. My hometown has a cleanup collection twice a year. Nice, but people don't hold on to their old TV set for 5 months waiting. It's on on the curb for the Wednesday special pickup and it probably ends up in a landfill.

So here are my green suggestions on the tech side.

Power down. Turn off the TV & monitor when you leave. Booting up a computer is actually a good thing for the computer - many computers run checks and refresh on boot up. And notebook computers were never meant to run 24/7 though people use them that way. (I know my sons and their friends do.)

All that electronics packaging - cardboard boxes, Styrofoam, plastic bags - should be recycled. Plastic should have a recycling number (e.g. Styrofoam is #6) used for recycling. Use Earth 911’s recycling locater to find out where you can recycle all your packaging.

Keep electronics out of landfills. Recycle or donate them if they still work. Local groups are popping up to give older electronics to seniors and provide some instruction. Encourage stores that allow trade-ins (whether you take a credit or not). Post an ad on Craig's List for your region and let someone buy it cheaply or just come by and pick it up for free if you're so inclined. (There are plenty of things being "recycled" there for free in my part of NJ.)

At least use something like Earth 911’s recycling locater to find a place to recycle them. Most electronic devices have hazardous materials (like lead and mercury) lurking inside. That makes the proper disposal of electronics a necessity. Support manufacturers that are actually responding to this with products that limit or eliminate hazardous materials and take back their devices in the end and recycle or dispose of materials properly.

Buy products that consume less energy - some by 50%. Check for an ENERGY STAR label. on computers, monitors, televisions, battery chargers and the increasingly techie appliances around the house. Notebook computers use less energy than desktops and LCD TVs use less energy than plasma TVs. Rechargeable batteries are much better than 10 years ago. You use them automatically for cell phones and laptops, but probably still buy disposable AA and AAA batteries for other devices. Switch over. And at the end of their life, they are actually accepted by more recyclers than other batteries.

Personally, I'm not a big purchaser of extended warranties, but that may be an issue I need to deal with in my greening. Warranties encourage you to have a unit repaired rather than throw it out. I can recall my dad fixing our tube television set. Those days are gone (the tubes and the home repair) but having a warranty might get you to keep a unit longer, which is better for the environment in many ways (manufacturing, packaging, shipping, disposal). The same idea applies to upgrades to units rather than new purchases. The thought that we have become a disposable society is hardly a new one, but it certainly is more dangerously true than forty years ago.