script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
Dick Holt and his brother-in-law, Chuck Lindorfer, dropped the tailgate on their red pickup to reveal a monstrous black-and-
white television housed in a wooden cabinet.
"When I went to color, I kept it because it was working yet. I wanted to keep it as a black-and-white antique," said Holt, of
Oakdale, who decided that recycling the now-inoperable console made better sense that letting it gather dust in his basement.
Still, he hated to say goodbye to the Zenith, which he bought in the mid-1960s when "Bonanza" was the nation's most popular
TV program and color television started creeping into living rooms.
Holt and Lindorfer were among dozens of Washington County residents who unloaded TVs, computers, printers, fax machines,
cell phones and other electronic items for recycling on a recent Saturday. Electronics recycling is now free in Washington,
Dakota and Hennepin county programs, thanks to a new Minnesota law that requires manufacturers of such equipment to bear
the cost. Suddenly, residents are emptying basements and closets, donating electronics they've stored for years that contain lead,
mercury and other toxic substances.
"I knew that we weren't supposed to throw them in the trash," said Burke Hegrenes, an advertising copywriter who lives in
Woodbury and saved an old Macintosh computer for five years before bringing it to the county's Hazardous Materials Collection
Site in Oakdale. "I was delaying the inevitable."
Electronics recycling is catching fire everywhere in Minnesota. A recent two-day event in Duluth yielded eight semitrailer-truck
loads, said Dennis McNaughton, manager of Minnesota operations for CRT Processing Corp., the firm that packages and
transports electronics to its plant in Janesville, Wis., for recycling.
A three-day event at the Mall of America in November produced 1 million pounds, enough to fill 86 trucks. Washington County
residents have donated an estimated 20 tons just since December, when Washington County started its program.
"The whole state's doing it," said McNaughton, whose firm is one of several that collects electronics. Already this year CRT has
processed 8 million pounds in its 11,000-square-foot transfer station in Oakdale, a few miles from the county's disposal site.
Before free electronics recycling, he said, computers, televisions and other items often were being thrown into roadside ditches
by people who didn't want to pay to dispose of them. The new law requires manufacturers to help pay for recycling. One of
them is MRM, a company formed to represent Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba corporations. Since mid-September, said MRM
spokeswoman Tricia Conroy, the companies have paid for 1,500 tons of e-waste recycling in Minnesota.
Before Washington County started its free program, residents had to take their e-waste to private companies and pay $5 to $60
for each device. "To pay that amount of money for something that's broken" discouraged recycling, said Kathleen Nyquist, a
senior environmental specialist who oversees the county program.
Residents arriving at the county dropoff site expressed gratitude for the no-cost approach. Steve Andrus of Oakdale said he'd
heard of people disposing of electronics in lakes and said he "just waited and waited and waited" to recycle a DVD player and
some telephones. "This is really handy, really nice," he said.
Mike Hurley of Stillwater drove up with two computer hard drives, three monitors and several keyboards that he'd stowed for
10 years.
Janet Barrett of Oakdale arrived with a computer and printer -- gifts from her church that she no longer used.
As a bell signaled each arrival, several workers in white lab coats scooted out of the building into the cold sunshine, heaping
electronics of bygone days into giant cardboard boxes that will be trucked away.
Lots of people in Washington County and elsewhere are recycling old TVs, computers and other electronics thanks
to a new state law that requires manufacturers to cover the cost.
By KEVIN GILES, Star Tribune
Last update: February 26, 2008 - 6:40 PM
to a new state law that requires manufacturers to cover the cost.
By KEVIN GILES, Star Tribune
Last update: February 26, 2008 - 6:40 PM
