By Juan Soto
Elmhurst resident Tom Harrison drove to the parking lot of the Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing to drop off a broken DVD player and a non-functioning wireless keyboard.
His two electronic devices were piled up next to hundreds of CD players, computer monitors, printers, TVs, video games, batteries and cable boxes.
Harrison was one of the 153 borough residents who took part in the electronic waste recycle program Sunday organized by the Queens Botanical Garden and the Lower East Side Ecology Center, a community-based Manhattan recycling organization. They dropped off about nine tons of e-waste materials.
“This is great,” Harrison said after the drop-off. “I wish they had more events like this around here. It’s a way one can be more responsible to the environment.”
This year’s program, in its 12th edition, comes days after curbside collection of e-waste was banned in the city.
“We love to come to Queens,” said Christine Datz-Romero, executive director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center. “In this borough we are always very busy collecting electronics.”
There was only one rule at the e-waste collection: No household appliances.
“Tell him we don’t collect microwaves,” Datz-Romero told one of the volunteers at the site as a donor was dropping off two microwaves and some other electronics.
She explained that household appliances, including refrigerators and air conditioners, are picked up by regular collections.
At the Botanical Garden, the big star was the classic vacuum tube TV set.
“Nobody wants these TVs anymore,” Datz-Romero said. “Everyone likes flat screens TVs now.”
The nine tons were shipped to the nonprofit’s warehouse in Brooklyn. From there, two recycling companies in Brooklyn take the e-waste, shred it and then sort it by materials, usually plastic, metal and circuit boards.
“Circuit boards are the most valuable,” Datz-Romero said, referring to the electric boards most electronics devices have.
Some computers that are collected can be save. The Lower East Side Ecology Center refurbishes and then sells them.
“We try to sell the refurbished computers at affordable prices,” Datz-Romero noted.
When the program started, the collections were not as big as in the past few years.
“It wasn’t that busy at all,” Datz-Romero said. “The truth is that people needed to learn about this, and they did. Now, residents know about the idea of recycling and they do participate in collections like this.”
Also on Sunday, the city Parks Department hosted a mulchfest event at Jackson Heights’ Travers Park.
Dozens of residents took their Christmas trees and gave them a second life as mulch to nourish plantings. Last year, about 30,000 were recycled citywide in MulchFest 2014.
Reach reporter Juan Soto by e-mail at jsoto@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4564.
