Bring Out Your Dead

3/26/08

Long-time readers will no doubt be aware of my affinity for “found objects.” You may recall the massive haul that Hanni and I made from out apartment dumpster last summer, right around the time MSU students were bounding back home for summer break. If not, I invite you to enjoy that here, right after you finish this brief post.

With the ever-decreasing price and availability of consumer electronics, it’s easy to give up and throw away any product that malfunctions even minimally. And how couldn’t you? It costs more to repair, say, a TV than just to buy a new one. Plus, the new one will have a better picture and consume less power. Even so, I feel a severe pang of white, liberal guilt anytime I have to chuck a piece of electronic detritus into the trash to clutter up our ever-expanding landfills. Not only for the fact that I’m creating trash, but because things like TVs, cell phones, radios, microwaves and the like contain some really rather nasty materials and chemicals that may or may not turn all our decedents into flipper-babies.

Fear no longer! In an NPR story earlier today I heard of a website where you can go to find out what type and where certain recycling centers exist near you. Just plug in your zip code and you’ll find places that will take and recycle everything from TVs to cell phones to cameras to any and all computer parts. It’s http://www.mygreenelectronics.org/, dear readers.

Use in good health, my friends. Because a race of angry, mutated flipper-babies is much more frightening in a world where the ice caps have melted. Thank you for your kind attention.