My 10/03/10 Missoulian column
What do you do with that old PC, printer, monitor or TV that’s in the basement or garage? The one that doesn’t work anymore, or is too old to use?
Don’t put it out for the garbage, that’s for sure. If you do, it will end up in the landfill where it doesn’t belong and where it will leach heavy metals and plastic into the ground and groundwater.
On Saturday, Oct. 9, there’s an “e-waste” collection and recycling event called Erase your E-waste, and it’s where you can correctly recycle your old stuff to keep it out of the landfill.
There hasn’t been an recycling event for two years, and so it’s a good time to get that stuff in the car and get it to the Missoula County Fairgrounds. (Use the entrance on South Ave.)
The collection runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. or until they fill up the trucks to 150,000 pounds for the trip to the recycling facility in Denver.
Up to five televisions, computers, VCR’s, cell phones, stereos, radios and other small electronics will be accepted for free. And it’s $1 each for five to 10 items, in order to help with overall costs.
(Large appliances such as refrigerators, freezers and microwaves will not be accepted. There are other recycling avenues for them, call BFI-Missoula Recyclery at 721-1120 for more information.)
The event is sponsored by LG Electronics and Vann’s, with additional support from Yellow Freight and the University of Montana.
One concern that I’ve covered before and that is being addressed for the recycling event is data security. The hard drives in PCs (and other forms of memory in other devices) store lots of personal information, which can be recovered – quite easily – by others.
Vann’s marketing manager Matt Ranta told me that the data on PCs and other devices is secure. “The group we’re working with provides certified data destruction,” he said. “All recycled stuff will be loaded into trailers, locked and transported to Denver.”
And Waste Management in Denver says that “we can verify the complete destruction of all sensitive or proprietary files, applications and other data from computers, servers and storage devices.”
So remember that next Saturday morning is good time to drop of your old computer stuff, before the Grizzlies play Idaho State.
This week in Mac Q & A: How Do I Erase a Hard Drive Before I Give My Mac Away?