Electronic items enhance our lives, making our homes more efficient and eco-friendly. However, with the decreasing costs of electronics and rapid technological advancements, we're discarding our devices at an alarming rate.
Electronic items enhance our lives, making our homes more efficient and eco-friendly. However, with the decreasing costs of electronics and rapid technological advancements, we're discarding our devices at an alarming rate.
This surge has resulted in electronic waste becoming one of the fastest-growing types of waste in both Australia and the world.
Managing e-waste is no small feat. It encompasses a wide range of base metals, heavy metals, precious metals, critical elements, rare-earth elements, and toxic elements.
Proper handling is crucial for the well-being of both humans and the environment.
Many of our household electronic appliances, such as fridges, washing machines, clothes dryers, air conditioners, water heaters, ovens, vacuum cleaners, entertainment equipment, game consoles, and stoves, ultimately become e-waste at the end of their life cycle.
Australians collectively own over 45 million household appliances, an impressive yet concerning figure. What's more, 2.5 million of these appliances are discarded annually, often ending up in landfills.
Recycling your unwanted appliances can help recover valuable materials such as metal and plastic as well as other non-renewable resources. This creates a closed loop in the economy and gives these materials a new lease on life.
Proper disposal and recycling also keep toxic substances, such as flame retardants, from entering the environment.
If your appliances are still in working condition, consider selling or donating them to extend their usefulness.
However, if they're beyond repair, don't leave them by the curb side. Instead, reach out to your local council for bulk hard waste collection services or locate the nearest transfer station accepting these materials.
The ethical disposal of unwanted electrical appliances is a shared responsibility for households and businesses alike. Businesses typically deal with the obsolescence of fax machines, computer peripherals, mobile phones, and other broken electrical appliances.
This E-waste is rapidly inundating our landfills, posing a severe problem because its contents are far from disposable. Some e-waste items can take over a century to decompose fully. This surge in e-waste is also shrinking our overall landfill capacity, forcing governments to expand landfill sites.
Moreover, e-waste contains hazardous substances like lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and brominated fire retardants. These toxins are not only difficult to dispose of but can also harm the environment.
According to the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics), if 75% of the 1.5 million televisions discarded annually were recycled, it would result in savings of 23,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents, 520 mega litres of water, 400,000 gigajoules of energy, and 160,000 cubic meters of landfill space!
Clearly, recycling e-waste is far from a waste—it's an environmental necessity!
Various electronic products, including home audio and visual devices, portable players, video game hardware, and more, contain precious and rare-earth elements.
Australia currently only regulates 2 categories of E-waste, including computers/laptops and TVs, with the computer recycling scheme.
This National Recycling Scheme was established in 2011 to provide Australian households and small businesses with access to free industry-funded collection and recycling services for televisions and computers, including printers, computer parts and peripherals.
Disposing of old electronic devices irresponsibly leads to unnecessary pollution and waste. Refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, and freezers consist of materials that can harm wildlife, water supplies, and landfills.
Additionally, these appliances often release hazardous materials, further polluting groundwater. Thus, recycling is the best way to handle these items.
For responsible electrical appliance recycling, turn to ReSource, your trusted partner.
We have the capacity to deal with commercial quantities of E-waste.
Please contact us for further details on how we can help solve your E-waste problem.
