When someone thinks of recycling, they may picture containers filled with plastic bottles, old soda cans and many types of cardboard and paper. But instead of asking for paper goods this week, the city of Dickinson is giving people the option of getting rid of their old televisions and computers.
Beginning Thursday through Saturday, July 22, area residents and local businesses can bring their old electronics to the old Public Works building at 615 W. Broadway where North Dakota E-Waste will be present to help properly dispose of the items.
Dickinson solid waste manager Aaron Praus said this is the first time Dickinson is sponsoring an event like this. If it goes well the electronic recycling event could continue.
"The plan actually is, if this takes off and does well, we talked about doing a one-time or possibly twice-a-year event," he said.
If the city decides to hold a spring and fall citywide cleanup, the plan would be to host the electronic recycling event in that same time frame.
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"I think it'll be a lot easier for the residents to understand it and to participate," Praus said. "People look forward to those events and know that they're going on. That's when a lot of people decide they're going to do their clean-out. We'd like to make every option to them available that we can possibly put our hands on."
Praus said electronic recycling can help save space in the local landfill. The North Dakota Department of Health also encourages cities to recycle electronics and keep them out of the waste stream.
Justin Krom, president of ND E-Waste, said said while Bismarck, where the company is located, has a way for residents to properly dispose of old electronics, Dickinson does not.
The company ensures that every item they take is reused or disposed of in a safe and environmentally conscious way, he said.
"The big thing is, one, just the sheer volume of electronic waste that's out there," Krom said. "A lot of cities and a lot of states across the country and cities within North Dakota are realizing these products shouldn't be sitting in our landfills and, two, they're filling them up very quickly."
The following items are accepted with no fees:
• Computers (laptops/desktops)
• Printers/copiers/fax machines
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• Stereo components
• VCR and DVD players
• Cellphones/office phones
• Network and server equipment
• Tablets/smart phones
• Video game consoles
• MP3/iPod/handheld gaming devices
• Cords, cables and powers supplies.
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There are also some items that will have fees associated with them such as televisions, fluorescent lamps, U-shaped and circular bulbs, HID lamps, compacts with ballasts, PCB ballasts and PCB capacitors.
Krom said they also have a process for ensuring data is destroyed properly. People can pull the hard drives out themselves and then drop off the computer, but the hard drive will be properly wiped and destroyed for free if it is still in the device. If people want a certificate of destruction that includes the serial number of the device that has been wiped and destroyed, ND E-Waste will do that for $5 per hard drive.
"That hard drive is either going to get shredded or that hard drive is going to get wiped with software or a degaussing device which is going to erase the data off that device," he said.
