Leaving an old television or computer at curbside for collection with your household trash is about to become a thing of the past.
Effective Jan. 24, landfills in Pennsylvania will no longer be allowed to accept TVs, computers or certain other electronic devices under Act 108, the Covered Device Recycling Act. That means devices left at the curb or placed in a dumpster will not be picked up by private or municipal haulers.
The Lackawanna County Recycling Center is ready for the change, said Thomas Cummings, solicitor for the county Solid Waste Management Authority, which owns the privately operated facility.
County residents can drop off their old televisions, desktop and laptop computers, monitors and computer peripherals at the center on Boulevard Avenue during regular business hours at no charge, he said.
"There is no cost, so there is no reason not to," Mr. Cummings said.
The center will transfer the collected items to a certified electronics recycling company for processing, he said.
The General Assembly passed Act 108 in 2010 in response to the deluge of electronic products entering the state's landfills from both consumer and commercial sources.
In addition to barring the disposal of the devices in municipal waste landfills, the law placed new requirements on manufacturers and retailers to make it easier for consumers to recycle the products.
Colleen Connolly, spokeswoman for the Wilkes-Barre office of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said electronic devices have "clogged" landfills for too many years.
"There are millions of tons of electronic waste that go into Pennsylvania landfills, and it's just not good," Ms. Connolly said.
Barbara Giovagnoli, community outreach coordinator and education special for the county office of environmental sustainability, said old televisions and computer monitors in particular are "loaded" with lead and other toxic materials.
It is critical that they are disposed of properly and not just dumped, she said.
"The last thing we want is for these toxic materials to leak into our groundwater," she said. "The best thing for people to do is just recycle them for free."
Mr. Cummings said the recycling center will coordinate with municipalities that want to undertake e-cycling drives, although he doubted there would be sufficient volume for any community to conduct a regular electronics collection.
"But certainly if a municipality had an electronics drop-off and wanted to take it to the recycling center, that would be fine," he said.
Contact the writer: dsingleton@timesshamrock.com