URALLA Shire Council’s scheduled kerbside waste collection on 11-12 November will focus on the clean-up of electronic waste, or e-waste.
This e-waste muster will be available for households currently receiving a kerbside waste collection.
The council is working with local company Matthews Metal Management Pty Ltd and ComputerBank New England to prevent these valuable resources going to waste.
Residents are requested to place old TVs, computers etc on the kerbside the night before their scheduled pickup in a separate pile to other household waste.
Council workers will collect e-waste items and take them to the Uralla Landfill or Bundarra Landfill where it will be loaded into cages and removed from the site for recycling.
Waste and Resource Recovery manager Kath Little said that by participating in the clean-up residents can be assured that their old items are being recycled – reducing waste to landfill.
“Council clean-up day is a free service,” she said. “It is a time for residents to free themselves of all the clutter, including old electronic items that are laying around.”
Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a term for electronic products that have become unwanted, non-working or obsolete, and have reached the end of their useful life.
As a result of advancing technology many electronic devices become “rubbish” after a few short years of use.
Whole categories of old electronic items contribute to the e-waste stream. For example VCRs being replaced by DVD players, and DVD players being replaced by blu-ray players.
E-waste is created from anything electronic: computers, TVs, monitors, mobile phones, PDAs, VCRs, CD players, fax machines, printers, gaming consoles, etc.
When put into landfill these items not only take up valuable space, they also have the potential to leach hazardous materials such as lead, copper, nickel, and zinc into the environment.
Recycling these products results in a number of savings including landfill space, greenhouse gas emissions, natural resources and energy.
The council also offers free drop-off for these items all year round at both landfill facilities.
Help the environment by recycling these unwanted items responsibly and join in the e-waste muster on Council clean-up day.
