LSU Campus Sustainability partnered with the Capital Area Corporate Recycling Council on Wednesday to host an Electronic Recycling Event for students, faculty, staff members and the larger Baton Rouge community.
The event took place in the University’s Veterinary Medicine parking lot where a CACRC truck waited for people to bring in their electronics for recycling. Campus Sustainability manager Sarah Temple said they accept a variety of different electronics, such as CDs, VHS tapes, keyboards and even computer servers.
“They take everything pretty much with a wire except for monitors, like computer monitors and CRT, so TVs,” Temple said. “Those are not as cost effective to recycle because of the materials inside. It’s really expensive to recycle those things.”
CACRC, a nonprofit electronic recycling organization, brings the electronics from the event to its downtown location where the electronics are sorted. The organization decides whether it wants to refurbish electronics, such as computers, and resell them, Temple said most of the donations collected from the event are either used or recycled.
Campus Sustainability partnered with CACRC because although CACRC has its own building, the partnership makes it easier for people to participate, Temple said.
“Not everybody knows where the CACRC office is,” Temple said. “It’s downtown, and sometimes it’s hard to park there. This gives people an easy way to drop off whatever they have. We have it right here at LSU, and we try to really promote it. We put it on billboards, and we try to really advertise it on social media and get the word out so we get a lot of participation.”
Temple said Campus Sustainability’s goal is to partner with CACRC at least once once a semester and is already planning another recycling event for this May. It’s just as important to recycle electronics as it is paper and plastic, Temple said.
“A lot of electronics have heavy metals,” Temple said. “They have certain metals in the actual equipment. If we sent them to the landfill, they would eventually leach into the groundwater and soil, and that’s bad for the environment. They have to be recycled.”
Communication studies sophomore Jasmine Nguyen said she knows some people who prefer to keep their old electronics because they do not want other people to get their information off of their old devices. She said there are many reasons why people would prefer to sell or keep their electronics as opposed to recycling them.
“You can get money from selling your products versus getting no physical benefit from recycling,” Nguyen said. “You don’t really see the impact [recycling] has. Some people kind of give their electronics away to other family members, but their family members don’t ever end up using it so it just ends up in a corner.”
Biological engineering sophomore RaeDiance Fuller said the cash benefit drives many people away from recycling.
“I know if you turn in your phone when you get a new one they’ll give you money off your new phone,” Fuller said. “I know a lot of people hoard them for that reason or sell them on Ebay for people to use the parts. I guess the incentive of cash in your pocket versus recycling might not even out.”
Temple said it does not matter whether someone resells or recycles old electronics as long as they are kept out of landfills.
“That’s fine too if people want to sell their [electronics],” Temple said. “There’s the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. I think selling is a form of reuse, and a lot of what goes to the CACRC is refurbished or resold. I think that’s great.”