Spring 2013

Proper Disposal of Electronics

The Dangers of E-Waste

Sarah Cook

What is e-waste?

E-waste is a term that describes unwanted electronic waste such as old computers, printers and TVs. E-waste is different from regular garbage and recycling because it often contains toxic elements like lead and mercury. Because of these toxic materials, E-waste cannot be recycled in the same way as the average soda can. It must be taken to special facilities designed to handle the more complex processing of electronic materials. Choosing to make the extra effort to recycle old electronics properly helps protect the environment from hazardous materials and reduces waste in landfills.

List of e-waste banned from landfill and curbside collection:

Recycling bin of e-waste

answering machine
audio/video equipment
calculator
camera (35 mm or digital)
CD ROM
CD writer
Cell phone
Cell phone charger
circuit board
Computer (CPU, hard drive)
Computer mouse
Computer speaker
Disk drive
DVD player/writer
DVD ROM
Electric typewriter
Joystick
Keyboard
Laptop Computer
Modem
Monitor
Network hardware
Photocopier
Portable radios (eg. boom box)
Printer
Satellite reciever
Scanner
Stero speaker
Tape drive
Telephone (cell or wired)
TVs
UPS (uninterrupted power supply/battery back-up system)
Video game controller
Wireless device (Palm, BlackBerry, etc)
Pager

Where can I dispose of e-waste?

Members of the uWaterloo community have many ways to quickly and easily dispose of e-waste.

Campus Tech and E-Smart Store

Campus Tech, located in the Student Life Center (SLC) on the first floor and the E-Smart Store, located in South Campus Hall (SCH), both accept small electronic items including cellphones, digital cameras, laptops, ink and toner cartridges, and iPods/mp3 players.

Turnkey Desk

The Turnkey Desk, located in the SLC, collects batteries.

Central Stores

Central Stores, located in East Campus Hall (ECH), collects larger electronic items that have not been mentioned above.

Steps before disposal: protecting your personal files

Before disposing of your electronics, there are certain steps you should take to ensure all of your personal files that were stored on your electronics are no longer accessible.

Computers

It is important to make sure to permanently remove all personal information from the machine before it can be recycled, donated, or given to someone else to use.

Before you attempt to permanently remove all information from a computer, insure you have a backup of all information you may still require.

You will need to then use software like DBAN to wipe the hard disk. Simply download the software, burn it to a disk, boot the computer to the disk and follow the steps to wipe the machine.

CDs/Floppies/USBs

The best way to ensure no information is gathered from old USBs, floppy disks, and CDs is to physically destroy them then recycle them at one of the locations listed above.

Another option is to re-use the old equipment for arts and crafts. For example, there are many fun and useful ways to repurpose CDs.

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