What to do With Your Old Electronics: Sustainability Center Holds Electronic Recycling Drive

April 22, 2021

By Kelsey Braun ’22, Editor in Chief

Spring 2021 marks the fourth year that St. John Fisher College’s Center for Sustainability is hosting the E-Scrap for Camp electronics recycling drive.

Sunnking Electronics Recycling teamed up with Fisher to put on the drive for students to donate old, unused electronics. Based on the weighted amount donated from the campus community, Sunnking will be donating money to Camp Good Days and Special Times.

According to Dr. Boller, Program Director of Sustainability, there are many benefits to recycling old electronics. “From a pollution perspective, it’s really important,” said Boller. “Also from a resources perspective, our electronics have precious metals. There’s gold, there’s silver, there’s copper, it has lots of rare earth minerals.”

“It is bad to put those kinds of things in the landfill because when they break down and rust, they can leach out bad chemicals.”

The goal of electronic recycling is to divert electronics from landfills and to save the materials that can be reused. “These are very limited resources. We would consider them to be very nonrenewable resources,” said Boller. “For us to take them, use them for a while and then just bury them in the ground is really not a good idea.

Boller notes that there are specific materials that are acceptable to recycle, but there are also materials that can pose dangers during the process. The process of recycling electronics includes shredding materials, sorting pieces with machines, using magnets to collect metals and a chemical process to separate plastics.

During the 2020 drive, the Fisher campus community donated 3,220 pounds of electronics. 1,851 pounds were counted toward the E-Scrap for Camp drive and Sunnking donated $11,761 to Camp Good Days and Special Times.

As for this year, the goal from the Center for Sustainability is to gather 3,500 pounds and they want 2,000 pounds accepted to be counted, which would beat last year’s record.

The drive will continue until April 23. Materials can be brought to ISHS 116 “Recycling Room” (on the 1st floor of the building, around the corner from the Living Wall) on Wednesdays or Thursdays from noon -1 p.m.

Specifically note that the following are unacceptable:

Smoke Detectors
Devices Containing Liquid Mercury
Freon Containing Devices/Materials
Household Hazardous Waste
Materials Containing Liquids
Yard Equipment
Gas Powered Equipment
Radioactive Materials
PCB Containing Materials
Large Appliances (Stoves, Washers, Dryers, Dishwashers)
Alkaline, Wet Cell, Dry Cell Batteries
CDs, DVDs, VHS Tapes, & Cassette Tapes
Wooden Speakers

ACCEPTABLE ELECTRONICS FOR RECYCLING

COMPUTERS & MOBILE DEVICES, OFFICE EQUIPMENT

Computers (Desktop & Laptop)
Monitors (Flats Screen & CRT)
Computer Accessories (Mice, Keyboards, Webcams, Speakers & Microphones)
Cables & all IT Accessories Storage Devices (External Hard Drives, Solid State Drives, SD Cards, Memory Cards, Card Readers, ect.)
Computer power supplies Printers
Gaming Devices
Network Devices
Computer Peripherals
Circuit Boards/Cards
Speakers
Scanners