More than 900 York County residents participated in the Authority’s April 5 electronics collection program.  In addition to the Authority’s main collection site on Blackbridge Road , 12 other municipalities conducted satellite programs that piggybacked onto the Authority’s event.  Those municipalities included the City of York , Dallastown, Dillsburg, Jefferson and Red Lion Boroughs and Fairview , Lower Windsor, Penn, Shrewsbury , Warrington , Windsor and York Townships .

All programs together netted 130 tons of electronics for recycling.  York County residents brought in everything from old computers to microwave ovens, to phones and VCR’s.  Notes Gregg Pearson, the Authority’s E-cycling program coordinator, “We challenged people to e-cycle because it’s important to divert electronic equipment from the waste stream.   Heavy metals such as lead and mercury that are used in many electronic products have environmental consequences.”  One computer can contain up to as much as eight pounds of lead.   

The Authority hires an outside vendor to manage the materials collected during this event.  Materials collected are harvested for useable parts (circuit boards, power supplies, wood, plastic, and CRT glass); valuable metals (gold, copper, steel, aluminum); and potentially harmful components (lead, mercury and cadmium) and recycled.  Nearly all of the materials are recycled into new products.

The York County Solid Waste Authority facilitates responsible solid waste management.  The Authority uses an integrated approach to the management of waste that emphasizes waste reduction, reuse, recycling and resource recovery.  This is the seventh year the Authority has conducted an electronics recycling program.