Recycling old Batteries and Computer Equipment

  I have a bunch of old batteries (AA, AAA, DD) and an old Dell laptop battery (li-ion) that are dead and I need to recycle them.  I went out to the internet this morning and I performed a Google search looking for places that recycle dead batteries.  I didn’t think I would find any place local (Greeneville, TN) that would recycle batteries.  But to my surprise, I found several places.  I was thrilled.  

It turns out that all of our dump centers through out our county (Greene) will take the following items for recycling:

Plastic, cardboard, newspaper, aluminum cans, used oil, 4 used tires per year, batteries, metal, demolition and used computers and monitors, along with your household trash. 

Awesome!  We already take our plastic, cardboard, newspaper, aluminum cans, used oil and household trash to the closest dump center to us, but I didn’t realized that they would take batteries. 

For dump center locations, hours and phone numbers, visit this LINK at the Greene County Chamber of Commerce (GCCC) web site.  The GCCC web site even has a link called “Keep Greene Beautiful”.  I’m so happy that our Chamber of Commerce is trying to be environmentally friendly.  I would like the next generations that follow us, to have a place that is healthy, green and beautiful.  If you have a moment and you care about recycling and leaving a better place for our grandchildren, check out the programs on the GCCC web site, by clicking here.  You may find something that you are interested in joining. 

I also found a web site called “Call2Recycle US”.  I was able to perform a search for places that recycle in our area (you supply your zip code for the search) and to my surprise again, there were several pages of places that will take your recycling material.  Wow, how awesome is that.  Another great resource for recycling.  I’m loving this and I am so glad that recycling is expanding. 

If you have an old laptop or smarthphone that you want to recycle, I found an interesting web site that perform this service for free.  The web site is “EraseMyLaptop.com”.  The process seems simple enough.  They send you prepaid packaging.  You mail back your old laptop or smartphone to them.  They erase everything on your laptop and send you a report on the results.  Then they redistribute or recycle your old laptop to cover their operating costs.  They operate on a Zero land-fill policy.  I really like this idea a lot.  

Now, I haven’t used EraseMyLapto.com before, so I can’t vouch for it, but it seems like a good idea.  If I used this service, I would wipe out  everything on my laptops hard drive before sending it them.  This way, I really wouldn’t worry and the service is free and your old equipment gets re-used or recycled.  Sounds great to me. 

My Google search results lead me to a really informative article on the Earth911 web site called “Get the most out of your battery”.  This article contains a lot of useful tips for getting longer life out of your batteries, what type of batteries work best in what electronic devices, etc.  I would recommend reading this online article.  It isn’t very long and you’ll find useful information in the article, I believe. 

If you have some time, take a moment and let me what your recycling experience has been and anything of interest and fun regarding recycling. 

Dell.com is doing some interesting Green programs.  To learn more about them, check out the links below:

• Dell using Bamboo Packaging
• Dell has a new environmentally friendly Ink Cartridge
• Dell has the Greenest Data Center 

Happy recycling!