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A story about junk

Our DVD player died a few weeks ago. We quickly replaced it with a $60 model from Target, which sent me careening down a wistful road of technology nostalgia. Remember the days when buying a DVD player (or CD player, VCR, TV, even a telephone) was a big commitment? When we'd pore over Consumer Reports to see which small appliance was the most reliable, most durable, had the best repair history? The dead DVD player probably cost us $250 several years ago, and it was a purchase we agonized over. Buying its replacement was more like picking up a pack of light bulbs and tossing it into the big red cart along with the paper towels and toothpaste.

Electronics are so inexpensive and so cheaply made these days that they seem disposable. But did you know that it's illegal in California to put electronics in the trash? Electronic waste -- computers and monitors, stereos, microwaves, batteries, cell phones, and even fluorescent bulbs -- contains heavy metals that leach into groundwater when left to decay in landfills.

There are various scheduled recycling days around the city, but as a San Francisco resident I can personally recycle up to 30 items per month at the city dump. Never having been to the dump, and being curious about it, and also dying for a reason to leave the house without infecting other humans, I drove down there the other day to check it out.

There was a line of a dozen or so contractors' pickups piled with debris and big diesel trucks waiting to recycle scrap metal. I pulled my little Toyota Camry into the queue and waited. And waited. Then I realized that these trucks were waiting to pay dumping charges or to get paid for their scrap metal, so I drove around to the front of the line, risking the ire of many construction workers.

I was waved onto the scale to register my goods. The man in the little booth gave my little car a once-over and peered around to the back to see if I was hauling anything. "All I have is a DVD player and a cell phone," I told him. "That's all?" he asked, as if to say, "Who the hell drives all the way out here to unload a couple of gadgets?" He took my license plate number, gave me a receipt and directed me to some big bins full of junked computers.

I gingerly put my items (DVD player, remote, ancient flip phone, charger, phone charger) on the pile. And I wondered whether all of those computers, TVs and CRTs would be responsibly disassembled and disarmed or whether they'd end up in a third-world country where god knows what would happen to them and their hazardous innards. I guess I'll never know.

November 10, 2006 3:08 PM