Recycling Your Old Computer

New computers were on a lot of folks Christmas wish lists. But now that the holiday's over, what do you do with your old one? <br/><br/>News on 6 anchor Terry Hood says it is against the law to take

Thursday, January 4th 2007, 9:58 am

By: News On 6

New computers were on a lot of folks Christmas wish lists. But now that the holiday's over, what do you do with your old one?

News on 6 anchor Terry Hood says it is against the law to take your computer out with the trash in states all along the east and west coasts. That's because of all the toxic parts inside CPUs and monitors. Plus, no one wants all the personal information they have on their computer just sitting in a dumpster.

Experts say the better thing is to have your computer taken apart, like they do at Oklahoma Computer Recyclers at 4301 East Pine.

Scott Metzger and his crew separate tons of computers that come in every day. A truckload came from a local school. They dissect the machines, and sift out the pieces that can be used again. Old hard-drives are wiped or recycled as scrap aluminum. Other pieces are melted down to separate out the lead and the mercury in computers that's bad for the environment.

"40 percent of the weight of one of those monitors is lead. The computer cases: they carry a veritable witch's brew of toxic substances, hexavalent chromium, bromides, the motherboards have lithium, there's mercury, and there is lead once again. It all just doesn't belong in there."

With the parts they salvage, Oklahoma Computer Recyclers is able to build new computers they can donate to charities. They don't charge for the service.

Oklahoma Computer Recyclers just operates off the money it makes off the scrap.