Yes, Somebody Wants
Your Old Computers and Other E-Trash
by Dennis Reeves Cooper
Last week, we published a press release from GLEE (Green
Living & Energy Education) about a recycling fair at Key West
High School this Sunday, November 16, noon ‘til 2pm. All kinds
of interesting thing are going to be happening at that event— but
one item in the GLEE press release jumped out at us. A company
called Recycled PC Parts will be accepting drop-offs of old or
non-working electronic equipment, including computers, monitors,
printers, TVs, VCRs, cell phones, old batteries, stereos and
stuff like that. They’ll be at the high school all day, from 9am
‘til 3pm.
In fact, a spokeswoman for the company told us, “We’ll take anything with a plug— even if the plug is missing.” The reason that was interesting to us here at Key West The Newspaper is that, during the 15 years we’ve been in business, we’ve been storing our old computers, monitors, faxes and the like in closets, under desks and in the corners of our offices, apparently thinking that, somehow, we might be able to maybe use them again— even though most of this stuff is unworkable and totally obsolete. And, also, somebody— maybe Al Gore— told us that it was somehow bad for the environment to put them out for the trash men to pick up and take to a landfill somewhere.
And we suspect that there are probably other businesses and organizations around town that have the same problem. So we have made arrangements for all of our old electronic stuff to be taken to the recycling fair Sunday.
But we were also curious about why anybody would want our “e-waste” and what they planned to do with it. So the GLEE people put us in touch with Recycled PC Parts spokeswoman Gabriole Van Bryce. She told us that Recycled PC Parts is a division of Scrap Integrated Recycling— or SIR for short. Based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the company’s U.S. headquarters is in Miami. Company president Abilio Santos, a pioneer in the field of e-waste recycling, splits his time between Sao Paulo and Miami.
Van Bryce said that the SIR operation might be compared with an automobile junk yard recycling operation, but on a larger scale. “Virtually every part of anything electronic can be reused,” she said, “and over the years, we have developed markets for many of these parts and materials.”
She said that all e-waste collected by SIR in Florida is taken to their big warehouse in Opa Locka and evaluated and sorted.
“There is a market somewhere for virtually every component,” Van Bryce said. “Even plastic and metal housings can be recycled.”
She said that they have been talking to county officials to try to arrange for a permanent drop off point here where residents can bring old electronic equipment. When those arrangements have been firmed up, we’ll let you know.
In the meantime, you can drop off your e-waste at Key West High School from 9am ‘til 3pm on Sunday.
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