Since you’ve been sitting at home for the last year being bombarded with the messages on the doom and gloom of the Covid-19 debate, another ad may have burned into your brain off the flickering screen of the idiot box. The message of your responsibility to do the “right thing” and recycle all those obsolete, not working electronic devices is repeated over and over. The guilty feelings these messages engendered stirred me to action so on one of my trips out to the shopping mall a.k.a. the municipal dump, I loaded up the pickup with a few of the old computer carcasses… Just a few so I could move around the garage again without breaking my neck. I would sort a bigger load for a later trip.
At the dump I was directed to the proper area for each class of treasurers I was delivering and inquired to the location of the ‘seacan’ where I could deliver my electronic recycle components. “It’s gone. Not doing that anymore.” I was informed. The surface of the garbage heaps was strewn with discarded electronic devices.
I was confused. The adverts urging me to recycle were legion. What has happened? Has Mikey Harris who killed the Municipal Recycle Program of Northwestern Ontario some 30 years ago returned from his latest quest to privatize the public senior retirement homes (remember how well that turned out?) to visit new terror on our attempts to perhaps clean up our electronic waste?
Went looking for answers. The local contractor Asselin Transportation, who had been supplying and servicing those neat ‘seacans’ at municipal landfill sites explained the past authority “OES” had discontinued and a new authority, “EFRA” had taken over but had not issued any new contracts for the area. In the meantime Asselin does have a ‘seacan’ in their yard where the public can drop off re-cycleable electronics. Thank you Asselin’s.
A Google Search found me at www.recyclemyelectronics.ca/on, a phone number to voicemail jail and a promise to return my call as soon as possible. A search for a drop off location for my postal code showed nothing closer than Trawna… how appropriate.
In the meantime, I’ll re-pile, re-sort, and re-consider my treasure trove. Maybe some day my kids will drag it out to a recycle site where they will sell it all for a fortune.
