QUESTION: Where can I recycle TVs and computers? – Bryan from Indianapolis, Indiana

ANSWER: Kudos to you Bryan for being responsible (or at least wanting to be responsible) for recycling your electronics instead of throwing them in the trash. I feel recycling is important too but the irony of the whole thing is that it is fairly difficult to find a place that will accept your recycled electronics. I’m guessing that’s why you submitted this question.

The first place I would look is in your local small business community. Often, computer repair shops or other electronic stores promote a special recycling day where you can take your electronics and drop them off at their location for them to recycle.

Another place to look is the local churches in your community. I know recently a group came to my local church and promoted a day where you could drop off any electronics you wanted to recycle. I took advantage of this and dropped a car-load of electronics off at the drop-off location.

Use the Internet

You could also turn to the Internet to help you out. I’m not going to go into details on each one of these but the goal of the following websites is to help you find a person or place that will accept your used electronics. I’ve included both national websites (where you can search by your location) as well as local Indianapolis websites since you indicated you are from Indianapolis.

National:

• The Freecycle Network – www.freecycle.org
• 1-800-Recycling – 1800recycling.com

Local (Indianapolis):

• Recycle Force – www.recycleforce.org
• Disposable Alternatives Organization (DAO) – www.daoindy.com
• Indiana Recycling Coalition – www.indianarecycling.org
• Green Wave Computer Recyling (Indianapolis) – gwcri.com

Remember computers may contain sensitive data

One word of caution when recycling computers. Remember that they may contain sensitive data (personal documents, tax returns, etc.) so make sure the company recycling your computer will wipe your data clean before doing anything else with your computer.

If you don’t trust that a company will do this for you, I suggest you look into a freely distributed program like Darik’s Boot and Nuke which does a more than adequate job of making sure no one will ever be able to read the data on your computer ever again.

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