In the end recycling is delaying the item either being incinerated or put in a landfill, but doesn’t eliminate it. We should be focusing on how to eliminate these precious materials being put under ground and forgotten about until a later date.

Karrie – in addition to the material possibly ending up in Chinese landfill, which is bad enough, tons of it are actually sent to Chinese villages for “recycling”, which unfortunately involves desperatley poor workers picking the items apart by hand, and exposing themselves, their children, and the environment (soil, streams, rivers) to the lead, cadmium and mercury that make up most of the chip components. The workers do this because they might get to keep the tiny amounts of gold and copper they can extract, which can be traded for small amounts of cash. Here’s a news article with more detail: http://bit.ly/dfCbjN. It’s a horrendous situation that no American business owner would want to be associated with. Hence the importance of responsible e-cycling.

We recommend first having your technology resource confirm that the hard drive is erased using a utility that writes over the old files (simply deleting files is not secure) and to donate or recycle through reputable organizations to keep usable items out of landfills.