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Written by Staff
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This word made it into the local lexicon late last year when Syrotech, a local recycling company, stopped offering disposal services of it to local schools. The “it” in question is out of date computers, which, like most of our favourite electronic toys, can be loaded with hard plastics and toxins, including cadmium, barium and lead.
The province doesn’t currently have an electronic recycling program, which means that many of us just simply throw away our old computers and cellphones. And that’s bad. The United Nations Environmental Program estimates that, each year, 20 million to 50 million tons of e-waste is dumped into landfills around the world. That works out to about 4,000 tons per hour. |