Champaign County Residential Electronics Collection Set for Saturday

Organizers of Champaign County's quarterly Residential Electronics Collection say they've kept over 220 tons of old computers, microwaves, cell phones, VCR and DVD players, printers, mp3 players, keyboards and other equipment from going to landfills this year. And they hope to collect several more tons at their final collection of the year, set for the morning of Saturday, November 6th.

Susan Monte of the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission says a contractor specializing in the recycling of high-tech electronic gear makes sure everything they collect gets re-used.

"They select certain of the functioning items, such as newer model desktop or laptop computers", explains Monte. "They sort those out, and they select those to be refurbished and re-marketed. And the majority of stuff collected, the nonworking electronics waste is dismantled and separated into basic commodities for marketing."

Monte says each event typically attracts about a thousand vehicles, and is organized so that motorists can drive up and drop off their electronics gear, as safely and efficiently as possible.

Monte says the collection event is safe in another way. She says their recycling contractor destroys any data left on old computers --- whether the computers are slated to be refurbished, or just torn down to their basic materials.

"Data wiping software is used on items to be refurbished", says Monte. "And on other electronic waste, hard drives and data storage devices are shredded - physically shredded. That takes care of the data security."

Saturday's Residential Electronics Collection runs from 8 AM to Noon at the News-Gazette Distribution Center,3203 Apollo Drive in Champaign. There's no charge to drop off old electronics gear. Monte says to keep the traffic flowing, motorists should enter from Olympian Drive, east of North Market Street.