Recycle them!

On Saturday, Sept. 25 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Allegheny County Health Department and the Pennsylvania Resources Council will collect hard-to-recycle items at City of Pittsburgh Environmental Services, 3001 Railroad St. in the Strip District.

They will accept these items for small fees:

• Tires with no rim, $2
• Home phones or modems, $3
• Small printerss/scanner/faxes, $5
• Computer mice or keyboards, $1
• VCRs/DVD players/small UPS/routers, $5
• Stereos/small appliances, $5.

No fees will be charged for:

• TVs/monitors
• Laptops
• Personal computers
• Cell phones
• Ink and toner cartridges
• Compact fluorescent light bulbs
• Alkaline batteries
• Crutches
• Canes
• Walkers
• Wheelchairs
• Nebulizers
• Useable building materials such as unopened bags of grout/cement, lumber without nails and unbroken bricks.

Medical supplies like walkers, canes and crutches will be donated to Global Links, an organization that recovers medical supplies and provides them to needy institutions around the world, said Sarah Alessio Shey, environmental education coordinator for the PA Resources Council.

Normally, TVs and computer monitors come with a $10 to $50 fee to recycle, but this year Alessio Shey said a grant for Universal Recycling Technology is covering the donation costs for all televisions and monitors for the Sept. 25 event and another one later in the month.

“[TVs and monitors] are very expensive to recycle because they contain a lot of nasty stuff,” she said.  “They contain toxic materials and there’s a process to take them apart.”

All electronic waste, like the TVs, monitors and computers, will go to local company eLoop, LLC, which has a state Department of Environmental Protection-certified de-manufacturing facility to safely break down and process dangerous waste.  ELoop is also part of the Basel Action Network, an organization that certifies and regulates e-recycling companies.

Alessio Shey said the ACHD and PA Resources Council host recycling events from May to November, usually about one per month.  For more information, visit the PA Resources Council website or call Sarah Alessio Shey at 412-488-7490, ext. 236.