>>ANNOUNCER: More than eight hundred people with one mission:
promoting a healthy environment.
We are the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Nintendo 64, Gateway 2000, that big screen tv you but back in
1992 - once the cutting edge of technology, now gathering dust
in garages, basements and back rooms everywhere.
Since 2011, it's been illegal in West Virginia to dispose of any TV,
computer or
electronic device with a four inch or larger screen in a landfill
and that's why as the DEP's Brent Kessinger recently found out,
e-cycling makes so much sense.
>>NARRATION: The parking lot here at DEP headquarters as usually pretty empty
on a Saturday morning,
but today is an exception.
>>SANDY ROGERS: It started out packed and as you can see, it's backing up again.
We've had almost 180 cars come through already this morning and it's not even noon yet. 17 00:00:51,100 --> 00:00:52,120 >>NARRATION: In all, nearly
nearly five hundred cars and trucks loaded down with obsolete, 20 00:00:56,940 --> 00:01:00,360 unwanted electronics took advantage of the DEP sponsored
free e-cycling event.
From computers and TV's to hard drives, printers, tape players and keyboards,
a steady stream of electronic junk kept crews busy
sorting, packing and loading box after box
into a string of trucks. >>JIMMI BURNS: What we're tring to do to is to try and keep
everything out of the landfills. We try to keep everyting out of third world countries
and contaminating the land and the streams and everything out there with this kind of material.
>>NARRATION: That's because, besides taking up a large amounts of landfill space, old
electronics can contain toxic materials like lead,
mercury, barium
and cadmium
that require special handling.
eLoope disassembls and deconstructs these old electronics - breaking them down
to their basic components. It's a pretty efficient process, ninety eight percent
efficient in fact...
>>JIMMI BURNS: We end up with like two percent of what we collect
in the landfill. Thats
just trash - small bags and twist ties -
things of that nature that we can't get rid of.
The majority of it gets recycled. It gets made into new products. Some of the precious metals that come out of it -
gold and paladium, silver -
some of the stuff that comes out of wires - copper...
The plastic gets
broken-down and broken into pellets
and remanufactured.
The small amount that's still in working order is salvaged and refurbished but
for most folks dropping off at this event, these electronics had long since
passed the end of the useful lives...
>>MARY JONES: Especially computers, because they are absolutely after a couple of years
you know, like I said, I've got two - one is almost fifteen years old. It's just been in
the garage and we just had no idea what to do with it.
>>NARRATION: By the end of the day, more than thirty five tons of obsolete electronic
devices were headed off to the recycling center
making this the most successful electronics recycling event ever held by
the DEP.
additional free drop-off sites are planned for later this year in other
parts of the state.
In Charleston i'm Brent Kessinger for Environment Matters.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Last year, three electronics recycling events sponsored by the DEP
netted more than fifty tons of electronic waste.
An update now to the story we told you about earlier this summer...
The solar project here at DEP headquarters is now online. We're making
electricity and hot water on our roof.
We actually have tools that allow us to monitor system performance in real-time
and it's something you can do too anywhere you have an internet connection -
something system designers say is a great tool for educating folks about
the potential of renewable energy.
>>NEAL NILSON: Anybody who has a sustainability
plan or green energy plan,
uh... the more that information can be
disseminated through the public,
more the public can be aware of what they can do in good stewardship also to be
part of a green plan.
Each one of us has to protect our environment
and the stewardship that DEP is doing is a great example for that.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: We just put the monitoring software online that will allow you to look in on
how we're doing.
All you have to do his visit our website and look for the link at the bottom of
the home page and you can follow our day-to-day solar energy output.
The site also has lots of useful information about the amount of energy
were saving.
Fallen leaves aren't the only thing that gets picked up this time of year. The
DEP's Adopt A Highway fall cleanup is set for September twenty ninth.
This is video from last year's cleanup were more than thirty four hundred
volunteers turned out statewide
to help clean up over
fifteen hundred miles of West Virginia roads.
The Adopt A Highway cleanup program is sponsored by the Department of
Environment Protection
and the state Division of Highways.
You can adopt almost any state maintained road.
If you or your school, business or civic group would like to take part in a
future cleanup project,
give us a call at the number on your screen
Since 1988, Adopt A Highway volunteers have cleaned close to
seventy thousand miles of West Virginia highways and roads
during the annual fall and spring clean-up efforts.
Coming up: Learning environmental science while having fun too. We'll
head out to the Capitol for the annual Charleston Waterfest.