Seattle PI April 1, 2007
Recycling drive sends computers, electronics to those in need

Christine Henn spent all day Friday trying to get rid of her old TV. She went to Value Village, Goodwill, Thriftco -- but every place Henn tried to leave it, she was got the same answer.

Sorry. Too many metals and chemicals in that thing. Dispose of it elsewhere.

		Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
	Paul Wagner heaves a mid-'90s Apple monitor into a bin during a daylong electronics recycling drive operated by EarthCorps and InterConnection at Magnuson Park on Sunday. Wagner works for InterConnection, a non-profit that provides refurbished computers to underserved communities locally and abroad. At left is Max Keeler, a 16-year-old volunteer from Seattle Academy.

After a day driving around, Henn still was stuck.

"It seems everyone has three TVs in their home," said the 40-year-old Seattle resident. "Now I know why I see them sitting on the street corners."

Her TV -- and hundreds of others -- might have ended up on a street corner had it not been for an annual recycling drive Sunday at Magnuson Park.

A pair of non-profits -- EarthCorps and InterConnection -- accepted computers, monitors, TVs and other electronics for a small fee, promising that the now obsolete gadgets wouldn't damage the environment.

They started at 9 a.m. Sunday, and by 2 p.m. old computers and electronics filled two-thirds of a semi-truck.

"And this is just one day," said EarthCorps Executive Director Steve Dubiel. "This is a simple way for people to help the Earth without working outside in the rain."

Many who left their old computers, such as Seattle resident Rob Kosin, didn't realize how much the used goods could help.

For months, Kosin had a pair of computers and monitors waiting to be tossed. His donations brought InterConnection two closer to its goal of 4,000 computers, which it will send to schools in Chile. Fees collected at the event will benefit EarthCorps, a non-profit that builds global community through environmental restoration.

"A lot of people don't know about the program," said InterConnection Executive Director Charles Brennick, who already has shipped 800 computer-and-monitor sets to South America. "And there are several businesses who could really help out when they upgrade." InterConnection offers Internet services to non-profit organizations.

Computers newer than a Pentium II are reused after hard drives are cleared, EarthCorps volunteers said. Working monitors made after 1997 also are saved. Pentium III computers are accepted by InterConnection without charge. Recycling fees are assessed based on the donation.

Some monitors and other equipment are considered hazardous because they contain mercury and lead, EarthCorps international program manager Mark Howard said. Plastics on most computers and home electronics have polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, which have caused developmental and neurological defects in lab animals.

Seattle Public Utilities also considers TVs and computers hazardous waste, and refuses to pick them up in weekly trash runs.

But when computers and televisions aren't disposed of properly, harmful chemicals and components can leak, then seep into soil and water streams, Howard said.

"Think of what would happen if this many computers were in a landfill," he said, looking at a filled 5-foot-high crate. "We do this every year, and we always get this kind of response."