Keep Carroll Beautiful (KCB) Electronics Recycling (or E-Recycling) is an event held twice a year and open to all residents of Carroll County. The 2021 Spring E-Recycling is taking place this Saturday, April 17th, at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Carrollton. The Fall E-Recycling, scheduled for October 16, at Midway Church in Villa Rica.
During E-Recycling, participants drop off old, broken, and unusable electronics for KCB to send to a recycling facility in Atlanta. These E-Recycling events are completely free to participants. This event is made possible thanks to our partners and sponsors whom have covered the costs incurrent from hosting the event, transportation, and the recycling fees for materials Recycled. The 2021 Spring E-Recycling event is sponsored by SLM Recycling, Brad Cole Construction, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Atlanta Recycling Solutions, and Gradick Communications. Additional thanks to our partners for our annual programming: Strong Sustainable Southwire, Carroll County Government, and Alice Huffard Richards Foundation.
Following the 2020 Fall E-Recycling event, KCB shipped off 28,000 pounds of electronics to the recycling facility. That included 69 flat screen TVs, which cost on average $15 to recycle, and 106 CRT TVs, with an average recycling fee of $20. To look at what is accepted for the E-Recycling events, visit our website at www.kcbga.us.
During the E-Recycling event, participants pull up to a large parking lot staged to receive electronic waste. Cars line up along drop-off zones that are manned by our friendly volunteers who take the recycling out of the vehicle. We ask that all the electronics are kept in the trunk or truck bed – there is no need to get out of the vehicle. Most participants are in and out of the event area within 5 minutes.
Through community partnership and cooperation with Southwire Company, we were able to divert over one and a half million pounds of electronics from Carroll County landfills in the last 16 years! According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, recycling electronics “conserves our natural resources and avoids air and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by manufacturing virgin materials. “
Recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 US homes in a year. For every million cell phones we recycle, 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered. (Source: EPD)
But recovering valuable metals and saving energy needed to produce new materials is not the only reason we should recycle electronics: computers, phones, TVs, printers, and so on, may contain toxic substances like lead, zinc, nickel, barium, and chromium. When released into the environment, lead can cause severe damage to wildlife and humans, affecting blood, kidneys, and nervous systems.
Bring your electronics, for free – to Tabernacle Baptists Church this Saturday, 9 am to 1 pm! For information on what is accepted, visit www.kcbga.us!
