Recycling Electronics Equipment

by Catherine Haug, October 24, 2010; updated March 25, 2012 for 2012 event dates

Recently, one of our ESP community members asked about recycling old computer equipment. He noted that Target charges $10 per item to recycle it. So I did some checking and here’s what I found:

WasteNot Project: E-Waste Event

Once a year you can recycle electronics at the Waste Not Project drop site. In 2012, the date is Saturday May 19 at Valley Recycling, 1410 Hwy 2 W. Kalispell, from 9 AM to 2 PM.

Waste Not Project is a collaborative effort including: Flathead Valley Community College Service Learning Program, Flathead County Solid Waste District, and Citizens For A Better Flathead. See www.wastenotproject.org for more. See also my post about this project’s events: Event Notice: Recycling Events (WasteNot Project).

NOTE: they also sponsor a once-a-year recycling event for pharmaceuticals (drugs and supplements).

County Landfill

I checked the FAQ page on the County’s Solid Waste website (758-5910) to learn the following:

Question:  What about disposal of appliances, computers and televisions?

Answer: Household appliances such as refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers and water heaters are accepted at the landfill and placed in a seperate location in the metals pile.  Computers and televisions are placed in the regular trash.

There is an annual electronics reclycing event every spring at Valley Recycling for those who wish to recycle their electronic equipment.  For more information, please call 406-758-5910.

So if you have electronics equipment to recycle, my suggestion is to save it up until next spring for the annual event.

Other Locations

Next I checked Earth911.com. On this site, you enter the item to recycle (I input “electronics”) and a zip code. I checked the following zips: 59901, 59911, 59912, 59937. Here’s what I found (Call first to find out if they charge a fee).

  • Best Buy (752-1300), Staples (257-8200), and Target (751-8700) both recycle a broad list of electronics equipment (but there may be a fee, so call first).
  • Office Max and Cartridge World recycle cartridges
  • Recycling and Salvage (212-2334) recycle cell phones, CDs, computers, monitors, electronics
  • Salvation Army Thrift Store (257-5449) recycles cell phones, CDs, televisions and video tapes
  • White’s Computers (257-4449) recycles CDs, computers, monitors, office machines

And from the Living Green supplement to the Bigfork Eagle, I found the following:

Cell phones: Most major mobile companies offer in-dtore recycling opportunities for your old cell phones. Note: the EPA reminds you to delete personal information before discarding or recycling. Either manually delete the information and remove the SIM card, or use a data-erasing tool. Visit ReCellular.com for a free data eraser.

Cat’s note: It’s also advisable to remove personal information from any computer device before discarding or recycling.

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