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Events, sites offer ways to recycle, help
By christine keeling
The environment isn’t the only thing that can benefit from recycling.
Organizations and businesses offer safe ways to ditch household hazardous waste. In some instances, de-cluttering can earn store discounts or help a soldier call home.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports 112,000 computers are discarded each day. If they hit the landfill, lead, mercury and cadmium can be left behind.
“You’re finding more and more stores stepping up to the plate,” said Terrie Termeer, deputy chief of the state’s Division of Recycling and Litter Prevention. The whole process of recycling “is getting easier and easier.”
Some electronics stores offer recycling bins and accept plastic bags, remotes, game controllers, CDs, DVDs, gift cards and ink and toner cartridges. They also have trade-in centers that give gift cards or checks for video games, movies, CDs, musical instruments and used electronics.
For example, Best Buy’s trade-in estimator on its website showed a Nintendo 3DS Console has a gift card value of $92 and a mailed check value of $60.
Properly disposing of ink and toner cartridges also can earn perks for shoppers.
Several office supply stores offer $2 store rewards for each cartridge a person brings in, with some letting consumers turn in up to 20 a month.
Every year in the United States, more than 350 million ink printing cartridges are thrown away, according to Sustainable Industries, and more than 100 million cellphones end up in the trash.
By dropping off cell- phones at Austintown Fitch High School and Lane Funeral Home chapels in Austintown, Mineral Ridge and Canfield, soldiers can call home.
Cell Phones for Soldiers refurbishes and sells usable phones and reclaims the gold, silver and platinum from obsolete models. The money is used to purchase and send calling cards to overseas military personnel.
“We accept all makes and models from any carrier,” said Sarah Merritt, consultant for Cell Phones For Soldiers. “And we mail 12,000 calling cards a week.”
Peg Flynn from the Mahoning County Green Team said she believes that people caring will help our future.
She suggested there are many ways people can dispose of household items properly.
Prescription medicines should be mixed with coffee grounds, sealed or wrapped and thrown in the garbage, not flushed down the toilet. Personal information on prescription labels should be blackened.
Latex paint can be mixed with cat-box filler and disposed as ordinary trash.
Household batteries can be dropped off at any Mahoning County Library branch for recycling.
Car batteries and oil should be brought to automotive-parts stores.
Old eyeglasses can be donated to the Lions Club.
Burned-out compact fluorescent lamps can be discarded at some home- improvement stores.
Although Flynn said the best thing a person could do is leave tires at the store when they buy new ones, Mahoning County residents can drop off tires from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. during a recycle event Sept. 24 at the Covelli Centre. The first 10 tires per car can be disposed of for free.
Afterward, a $1.50 charge per passenger-car tire will be implemented.
Flynn warned that consumers should never throw hazardous chemicals into landfills. Oil-based paints, light bulbs, paint thinners and other household hazardous waste can be recycled Oct. 1 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Canfield Fairgrounds.
To help keep items that others could use out of the landfill, a Drop and Shop will be featured at the Gray to Green Festival from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in Wick Park.
Everyone is invited to bring usable, working items, excluding electronics and hazardous materials, at 10 a.m. and then browse for items they may need.
More than 40 vendors, workshops, entertainment, kids activities and food will also available at the event.