Agency to recycle computers, phones

6/4/2001

TIFFIN - Instead of trashing your old computer, the Ottawa-Sandusky-Seneca solid waste district would like you to turn it in this weekend to be recycled.

From 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, the district will be accepting computer equipment and working cell phones at three locations:

  • The Agricultural Service Center, 3140 State Rt. 100, Tiffin.

  • Ottawa County fairgrounds, 7870 West State Rt. 163, Oak Harbor.

  • Sandusky County health department, 2000 Countryside Dr., Fremont.

    “We're taking anything that has to do with computers,” said Mike Darling, manager of the Seneca County recycling and litter prevention program. “Computer monitors, the central processing units, mouses, cables, anything that would be part of a computer.”

    Mr. Darling said the solid waste district developed the drop-off program in response to calls from residents asking what they should do with broken or obsolete computers. “There's definitely a demand,” he said. “If people don't bring them to us, they always throw them in a Dumpster or something, and they end up in a landfill.”

    Rather than take up landfill space, computers will be repaired or used for parts in other machines, which will be donated for use in school classrooms through the Computers for Education Program of Ohio. “They take the computers and clear them out, take a magnet over them to erase the memory, and take the pieces and parts out of two computers and make them into one,” Mr. Darling said. “Everything is recycled one way or another.”

    Cell phones will be deprogrammed, then reprogrammed for use as 911-only units for women who have been victimized by domestic violence, he added.