America Recycles Day

Friday was America Recyles Day, a time to remember how important it is to recycle all of the things we buy. An especially important focus this year was eWaste and the recycling of electronic. Ewaste amounts to 70 percent of all toxic waste, even though it’s less than 5% of our total landfill trash. That’s because eWaste, particularly from computers and cell phones, is full of hazardous materials that affect our kidneys, nervous systems and so much more—not to mention the gold, silver and copper that are wasted in these items.

As much as I agree that it’s crucial to find and use a good electronic recycling program near you, it’s much more important to stop buying crap that we don’t need. Upgrading to every new device is not only stupid and costly, but wasteful. The tungsten and other materials that it takes to mine our phones are also made in mines where kidnapped children work as slaves and die as slaves every day, just to obtain the products that help us make our lives easier.

On top of that, many of the more developed nations send our eWaste to developing countries so that they get the harmful effects of most of these products breaking down instead of us. Look up conflict minerals, eWaste, and planned obsolesce together to learn more about these issues. It’s nice to say that we recycle, but it’s refusing to generate so much waste and harm to begin with that really matters most.

Find out more about America Recycles Day here.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia