It’s likely you’re reading this article on an electronic device but have you thought about what happens when you need to purchase a new one? Do you have a plan for recycling your electronics? Just throwing that device in that trash can cause dire consequences, ones that are slowly killing all of us.
Electronics have become more a part of our life than ever. Try to image a day where you used no electronics at all… it’s hard, right? Electronics are ingrained into our daily lives and have made them easier and more manageable. You can make a phone call from anywhere. We can communicate with someone across the world with just a click of a button. We can also look up almost anything you need to know in seconds.
While all of this technological progress has been integral to our growth and development as a society, what happens when you have to get a new device? There are millions of devices in use every day from cell phones to laptops. However, as we all know, the devices can simply stop working due to age or accidentally being broken. There are also other times when it’s necessary to upgrade to an improved device. When these situations arise, what do you do with your old electronics? Many people, not knowing any better, resort to throwing them in the trash. The environmental impact of not recycling your electronics is causing detrimental consequences.
The Environmental Impact of Not Recycling Your Electronics
When someone throws away an electronic device, it is most likely to end up in a landfill. If you think about the millions of devices in use on a daily basis, it only makes sense that millions more are being discarded as well. This leads to our landfills being filled with dangerous electronic waste, also known as e-waste.
While e-waste has always been an issue, the amount of electronic waste and how fast it is being thrown away has increased rapidly in recent years. The consequences of these devices just being discarded has resulted in an increase in air pollution, water pollution, and soil pollution. The air can be polluted when scavengers find these electronics. They burn the waste to get the copper off to sell. Using this method causes the toxins from electronic waste to enter the soil and then the water supplies.
The latest research on e-waste estimates that about 41.8 million metric tons of e-waste were generated in 2014 and that this number will increase to 50 million metric tons or more by 2018. The toxins leaching into our soil, water, and air are causing harmful environmental and health effects already. The projections state that they are only going to get worse.
The Health Impact of Not Recycling Your Electronics
The heavy metals that get released into the environment have been shown to cause fatal diseases. These include cancer, brain damage, kidney failure, heart problems, mental illness, and more. The health effects of not recycling your electronics are far-reaching and still being understood. However, the more studies that are done, the more we understand the devastating diseases these toxins from e-waste cause.
How to Protect Yourself and Your Family from E-Waste
The best thing you can do for the environment, as well as the health of you and your family, is to recycle your electronics. It’s almost important to choose a reputable recycling company that takes a variety of discarded electronics. There are a lot of companies that pose as recyclers. They do this to take your electronics and sell them to other countries which have fewer regulations on how electronics are recycled. Most of these nations cook the computer parts to melt them down, releasing harmful toxins into the air.
You Need a Reputable, Trusted Recycling Company
American Recycling is a family-owned business and has been operating for 14 years in Lincoln, Nebraska. American Recycling provides all customers the full assurance of proper electronics disposal. We specialize in information destruction, disassembly, sorting, disposal, and/or recycling of any electronic equipment.
When using our company for your electronic recycling needs, you can be certain that your devices will never end up in a landfill and will always be disposed of properly. Data security has also been a big issue, which you can read about here: What You Need to Know About Data Destruction. You can rest assured that American Recycling exercises due diligence in preserving the security of the data in the equipment and components we receive for recycling. We’re here to work together with you to secure your assets, limit your security liability, reduce your carbon footprint, and to protect our environment.
