Category Archives: Recycling & Solid Waste

Took our broken riding lawnmower to Allied Recycling, 1901 Washington Street, Walpole, and they gave us $44 for the scrap metal value.  Interesting experience to see the operation, lots of employees, and crazy busy on a Saturday.

Town of Medfield Transfer Station E-waste Results – August 6th, 2011

The launch of the new e-waste recycling program at the Town of Medfield Transfer Station on August 6th was an undeniable success.  Medfield is a little “greener” this month, thanks to the cooperation of Medfield residents, the Medfield Transfer Station, and Electronix Redux Corp.  Over 100 town residents assisted the Electronix Redux team in recycling almost 4 tons of electronic waste without a hitch.  Residents flowed efficiently through the e-waste drop-off station as they handed off old televisions, computers, cell phones, and other expired electronics throughout the day, filling the company’s 18 foot box truck to its limit.  Electronic waste or “e-waste” as it is sometimes called can contain harmful heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, chromium and mercury.    It is the responsibility of everyone to ensure that these items are handled properly and in as safe a manner as possible and the Town of Medfield is certainly doing its part.  The team would like to thank everyone that came out to make the first event such a success, and looks forward to next month’s e-waste collection day on September 3rd.

I was asked this week to find out whether Electronix ReDux Corp., the new e-waste recycling company that is going to be collecting old electronics at the Transfer Station on the first Saturday of each month from now on, is disposing of the materials it collects in a responsible manner.  What follows is the query I made and the Electronix ReDux Corp. response.

From: Osler L. Peterson <osler.peterson@verizon.net>
To: Taurin Bellavance <tbellavance@electronixredux.com>
Sent: Mon, August 15, 2011 5:15:11 PM
Subject: RE: One more request…

Taurin,

I am one of the selectmen in the Town of Medfield, and the question has been raised by a resident as to what you do with the electronic goods that you collect, and whether they are being responsibly disposed of by your company.  Can you please share with me how your business deals with the old electronics, and also share how and where the ultimate disposal takes place.

Thank you for your courtesies and assistance with this matter.

Best,
Pete
Osler L. Peterson, Attorney at Law
PETERSON | Law
580 Washington Street, Newton, MA 02458
66 North St, PO Box 358, Medfield, MA 02052
T 617.969.1500
T 617.969.1501 (direct)
M 508-359-9190
F 617.663.6008
osler.peterson@verizon.net
http://mysite.verizon.net/osler.peterson/
Medfield Information at: FB, https://medfield02052.wordpress.com/ & http://twitter.com/Medfield

=============================================

Pete,

This is a question we receive frequently from both commercial and residential customers.  The recycling procedure used depends on what the item being recycled is, and what it’s components are comprised of.  For the sake of simplicity, I will give the example of a home PC which we recycle on a daily basis.  The first step in the process is to shred the hard drive, as it may contain personal data.  This is the most important part of the procedure in our eyes, as we feel that it is our responsibility to ensure proper destruction of the data-containing components entrusted to us by our customers.  If the computer is deemed usable, it will be fitted with a new hard drive and find a new life with someone less fortunate than the individual who donated it to our company.  If the computer is too old or damaged, the various drives, motherboards, RAM, CPUs, etc. are removed and separated into various bins for further processing.  These parts all contain extremely minute trace amounts of various precious metals which will be recovered via a refining process.  Gold, for example, has reached such historic prices in recent years that it has actually become cheaper to “mine” it from expired consumer electronics than to attempt to mine it from the earth’s crust. The outer shell of the computer is made up of plastic and steel and in some rare cases, aluminum. These metals and plastics are separated and recycled in the same manner that they have been for decades.

Within recent years there has been a growing awareness of the unscrupulous practices of some e-waste recyclers, and I have a sneaking suspicion that your resident’s question was sparked by one of the many television specials reporting on the dirty side of this issue.  Images of children in Third World countries tearing apart our end-of-life electronics in dirty and hazardous conditions certainly warrant cause for concern and sometimes invoke feelings of guilt in the consumers responsible for the disposal of these products.  I can assure you that this is not the type of business that we run, and that we pride ourselves on our green initiative and ethical values.  There has been very little government legislation regulating the disposal of e-waste in the past, but this is all changing and the crackdown has begun.  Anything that we do not have the capability of handling in-house is performed by other licensed companies within the United States, regardless of the potentially higher costs.  We are in this business for the long haul and feel that it is in our best interest to do things by the book and keep a clean record if we are to continue to operate well into the future.  We appreciate both your business and your concern! If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to e-mail or call.

1.  Items now have to be dropped off before 2:00 PM.

2.  The ad hoc monitors had the swap area totally cleaned up at its close this past Saturday, so that the Transfer Station operators had much less to do in terms of picking up and tossing left over items.  There were still three bins of former swap areas items that the ad hoc monitors had loaded into the bins, and the operators  needed to haul those away on the front of their front loader.  However, it was reported that in the past there were as many as six full bins of former swap area items that then had to get picked up and bumped at the end of the swap time.  The ad hoc monitors had first segrated the swap area items during the day into categories, second sorted out the cardboards and other items to recycle so that less gets dumped, and third had picked up the swap area site themselves at the end of the day.

3.  Anyone interested in being considered to be on the Swap Area Subcommittee of the solid waste committee should let the Board of Selectmen know of his/her interest by our 8/2/111 meeting, as that is when we indicated that we would make appointments.

4.  Electronic recycling will now occur regularly on the first Saturday of every month at the Transfer Station, with a charge levied.  The same Norfolk vendor Steve Catanese got to come to Medfield Green Day will be running the monthly service.

This morning I suggested to Mike Sullivan via the email below that we start appointing volunteer monitors at the swap area to police how it is run.  Thanks to Steve Catanese and Bert Rosengarten for sharing their ideas with me on Saturday on how to make the swap area work better.

For your meeting with the solid waste committee this morning, please ask them to consider implementing rules related to the operation of the swap area at the Transfer Station:
1.    Recognize a group of volunteer monitor for the swap area
2.    Appoint someone like Nancy Irwin as the first chair of that group
3.    Authorize that group to create a list of rules for swap area use, in coordination with the Transfer Station staff
a.    E.g. –
i.    Enforce the no CRT rule
ii.    Ask depositors to not leave broken items, items which should instead be tossed directly into the dump area
iii.    Segregate items by type
4.    Provide the monitors with vests that indicate their appointed status
5.    I suggest providing them with a CB radio by which they can call to the police detail person
6.    Explore allowing a trailer to be parked at the swap area, in which items could be stored for the next swap day

The Town of Medfield and Electronix Redux Corp. of Norfolk, MA will now be offering television and electronic recycling to current Medfield Transfer Station sticker holders.  The town will be discontinuing its bi-annual CRT Collection Day in favor of these monthly events. The collection of electronics will be held on the first Saturday of each month between the hours of 9AM and 2PM at the Medfield Transfer Station beginning August 6^th.  Televisions and computer monitors can be recycled for a fee of between $5 and $25, depending on size and type.  All other electronics including: computers, printers, copiers, scanners, cell phones, gaming systems, ink and toner cartridges will be accepted free of charge. For non-residents and residents without a Transfer Station sticker, drop-offs are accepted during normal business hours at Electronix Redux’s recycling facility or by calling them directly to schedule a pick-up. For more information, visit www.electronixredux.com, or call 508-384-1112.

Commonwealth Magazine today on municipal waste notes San Francisco recycles 72% (Medfield 50%) http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org/Investigations/What-Works/2010/Energy-Environment/Attitude-Adjustment.aspx