NEW CURBSIDE E-WASTE RECYCLING PROGRAM 

                                      in HUNTINGTON TOWN


According to the Department of Environmental Conservation, U.S. consumers throw away 400 million units of electronic equipment (e-waste or electronic waste) per year.  Much of that toxic detritus ends up burned in waste-to-energy incinerators and/or landfills.  Now Huntington residents will be able to recycle electronic waste with a simple phone call to make arrangements for a specific day pick up of their e-waste at their curb.

Huntington Town Board members announced the new e-waste program on Tuesday, years ahead of the State law prohibiting consumers from disposing covered electronic equipment in landfills, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2015.

(From Left to Right) Neal Sheehan; Director of Environmental Waste Management, Town Council Members: Mark Cuthbertson, Mark Mayoka, Frank Petrone, Susan Berland, Gene Cook and Huntington resident Jeff Bartels

Town Supervisor Frank Petrone said the Town has made a three minute video to show people how to erase personal information from computer hard drives to prevent identity theft, prior to proper disposal.
Town Councilwoman Susan Berland credited Jeff Bartels, a Huntington resident for alerting the Town Council to the health and financial benefits of curbside e-waste recycling.  Mr. Bartels, likens himself to a "Bird Dog"- pointing out potential environmental issues and problems at Town Hall meetings.  He worked with and thanked Patricia Del Col, Director of Engineering for the Town who helped iron out the details of the new program.  Mr. Bartels pointed to the tremendous health advantages of the new e-waste program in preventing the burning of  Beryllium, which is 1400 times more deadly than lead when burned and according to the manufacturer, Brush Wellman, is deadly toxic in vapor, dust or particle form.  Beryllium is found in almost all modern electronics.

Last year Huntington residents recycled over 330,000 pounds of e-waste at the Town's recycling center including:  laptops, desktops, tablets and e-readers, televisions, cathode ray tubes, small scale servers, computer peripherals, monitors, keyboards, mice or pointing devices, fax machines, document scanners, printers, VCR's, digital video recorders, portable digital music players, DVD players, digital converter boxes, cable and satellite receivers, electronic or video game consoles and batteries of all kinds.

"By calling (631) 351-3239 residents can make arrangements for specific day pickup of their e-waste and detailed instructions on how to remove contents from their hard drives if necessary.  Or residents can continue to bring their e-waste to the Town's Recycling Center at 641 New York Avenue in Huntington between the hours of 8AM and 4 PM Tuesday through Saturday.

The new curbside program is intended to encourage higher volume and more widespread disposal of
e-waste in the most convenient way possible for residents, according to Mr. Petrone.
"Recycling electronic waste keeps thousands of pounds of toxins from the landfills and incinerators including lead, mercury, cadmium and Beryllium" according to Town Councilman Mark Mayoka.