Anything with a Cord

Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services (SFBFS) is hosting an electronic waste recycling event at their Oak Park facility on June 20. Proceeds from the event will benefit programs at SFBFS.

Computer hard drives waiting to be recycled.

Old computers and outdated printers readily come to mind when you think e-waste, but it turns out anything with a cord can be recycled. Have a broken hairdryer at home?

An electric toothbrush that’s run its course? A lava lamp from your old dorm room? Christmas lights living past their prime? Please drop off your electronics on June 20 from 10am-2pm at SFBFS’ facility: 3333 Third Ave (between 34th & Broadway). Click here for a map. All items will be recycled by California Electronic Asset Recovery (CEAR). Items will be broken down and melted into new plastics or smelted to form new metal.

A front end loader dumps items into the Big Green Machine.

Two SFBFS staff members recently toured CEAR’s facility at McClellan and were blown away by the size of their operation. Everything from old ceiling fans to broken radios and even outdated informational CDs filled bins throughout the warehouse. Front end loaders scooped huge collections of vacuum cleaners and curling irons and dumped them into the Big Green Machine which uses centripetal force to break down items and produce small particles of plastic and metal.

Items waiting to be recycled.

Almost anything can be recycled. Click here for a list of acceptable and not acceptable items (no washing machines and tires, for example). Please share this flyer with neighbors who need to clean out their garage or pass along to the person who oversees your department - perhaps they have an industrial shredder, company coffee maker of fax machine that has seen better days.

The end product - tiny pieces of metal and plastic.

Thank you for doing your part of keeping items out of our local landfills. We look forward to seeing you on June 20.