Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Getting rid of E-waste Oh, we love our phone and laptops, our toasters, blenders, vacuums, hairdryers, smoke detectors and everything that plugs in. We couldn’t live life without them! They unfortunately aren’t necessarily made to last a long time, and at the end of their lives they are all e-waste - you can’t put any of these in your recycling and shouldn’t put them in your normal rubbish. This is obvious with the larger items like TVs and washing machines , but smaller items need careful disposal as well.  We are looking at around 80,000 tonnes of e-waste generated each year and only about two percent is recycled. This is one of the highest per capita amounts in the world. Also New Zealand is one of the only countries in the OEDC without a national e-waste scheme.  The Ministry for the Environment has an initiative to create a product stewardship process for electronic waste, with results expected later this year. The insides of electronics are full of toxic materials. A Cathode Ray tube TV or monitor may c