Mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District
Area residents will have the opportunity to properly discard their unwanted electronics at a collection event to be held Saturday, Nov. 7 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Boone County Fairgrounds, 5212 N. Oakland Gravel Road in Columbia.
This collection is for residents of households, farms and businesses in Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Cole, Cooper, Howard, Moniteau and Osage counties. Registration is not required.
“This event gives people the opportunity to safely dispose of electronic waste items – everything from adding machines to video game players will be accepted,” said Cindy Jolly, district manager. Most items are accepted at no charge. A $5 fee is charged for each television, computer monitor, copy machine and microwave.
Items accepted at no charge include adding machines, answering machines, calculators, camcorders, cameras, CBs/two-way radios, CD rom/zip/tape drives, cellular phones, cords and cables, desktop/laptop PCs, fax machines, handheld electronic organizers/games, hard drives, joy sticks/game controls, keyboards, main frames, mice, modems, pagers, portable CD players, postage machines, printers (laser, ink jet), radios/stereos, scanners, speakers, telephones, typewriters, word processors, VCRs/DVD players, video game players.
Incoming items are sold or demanufactured by Mid Mo Recycling of Columbia. Most items are sold wholesale to local computer stores to be resold. Some items are given to nonprofit organizations such as the Boys/Girls Club, 4-H clubs, and smaller schools and churches. Items are demanufactured in Columbia with the exception of monitors and TVs which are demanufactured at D-Cal Services in St. Louis. Metals are sold to Advantage Metals in Columbia. Circuit boards are usually sent to Redlin in Canada. All items are recycled including screws, plastic, paper and cardboard boxes. No computer items are landfilled. Hard drives can be destroyed at the collection site upon request: $5 fee if the hard drive is out of the computer; $10 fee if the hard drive needs to be removed.
Mid-Mo Recycling is a certified E-waste Recycler through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources E-waste certification program. Additional information is available at www.ecyclemissouri.org.
Partners for this project include Mid-MO Recycling, the Boone County Fairgrounds and the Mid Missouri Solid Waste Management District. This project is funded in part by a grant from the Mid Missouri Solid Waste Management District and approved by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
