Santa may have given you lots of new electronic toys this holiday season — but if you want to avoid his “Naughty” list next year, you’d better not let the old crap turn into new garbage.
This Sunday, bring your obsolete cellphones, monitors, routers, cameras, mice, wires, cables, and Microsoft Zunes (especially those) to the eighth annual electronics recycling drive in Prospect Park.
It’s not just about clearing out your already cramped closet, but about keeping lead and mercury out of the environment.
“There are a lot of toxic materials in electronics,” explained Caroline Kruse of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which is hosting the drive. “So by recycling them, you’re making sure toxins aren’t going into the air via incinerators or the ground by sitting in landfills.”
And it’s not just good for the environment — it’s good for you (that is, if you hope to permanently destroy all those naked pictures and your personal re-inactment of the “All The Single Ladies” video).
“We’re aware that there is personal data on a lot of these electronics,” said Kruse. “So recycling them guarantees your data gets destroyed.”
“After the Holidays” Electronic-Waste Recycling in Prospect Park [enter park at Prospect Park West and Third Street, (718) 965-8999]. Jan 16, 10 am-4 pm. For info, visit lesecologycenter.org.
