Heard an ad on the radio this morning for ewastedropoff.com [e-waste drop-off] This is a service of A.S.L. a large silicon valley company which came into being when the founders saw the opportunity in excess capacity electronics manufacturing. Consumer recycling is a newer sideline.

Good for them. From the write up about their operations it looks like the disposal of parts and extraction of precious metals is done more safely than in the third world dumping grounds we have read about.

Their pick-up sites and dates are not widely dispersed — mostly in the East San Francisco Bay area. They do invite you to sponsor a pick up event. You supply the site and they haul it away. [I’m sure there is more to it than that.]

Fortunately Marinites have the Marin Computer Resource Center in Novato as well as the Marin Sanitary Service, and the western East Bay has the Alameda Country Computer Resource Center at 1501 Eastshore Highway at Gilmore just north of Berkeley.

This kind of recycling is good — for now. What we really need are recycling taxes, to add further incentives to folks, and using the “cradle to cradle” design ethos that is slowly making its way onto the national scene.