Working to combat the problem of “e-waste”
August 20, 2006, 11:59 AM
We have a minor dilemma here that has been forced upon me by Mom while doing her annual clean-up-the-college-student’s-room thing (she did this to me as well all four years at JMU). It’s the safe disposal of an old computer monitor.
This monitor was actually my original “second monitor”, which initially came to the house when my father got a little old computer for his own use in the house. When he bought himself a new computer, I got to scavenge the nearly-new video card from it, and I got the monitor to go with it. Thus, the second monitor. Then when I got the flat-panel last December, my original 19-inch monitor went up on the lift as the “second monitor”, the flat-panel became my main screen, and the older monitor was removed entirely.
I put it in Sis’s room for storage, and as it turned out, she used it while at home from Virginia Tech rather than mess with her real monitor, since it was already there and all.
This was all well and good, until it unexpectedly died in July. Sad. So Sis put her real monitor in place and plugged it in, and all was well for her.
Of course, now we have the problem of what to do with this dead monitor. Dad wants to just put it out on the curb for the garbage men to pick up. I consider that to be a bad idea, since computer monitors do contain hazardous materials that would not be environmentally friendly in a landfill.
So therefore, the question boils down to this: Where in the hell do I take this thing? That’s the million-dollar question. And doing so before Dad takes matters into his own hands and it’s out on the curb and gone before I know it.
Categories: Computer