How to de-clutter your electronic life

Talk to your council about e-waste

If there are no takers for your pile of e-crap, there are better ways to get rid of it than tossing it onto the side of the road.

Australian city councils are actually being fairly proactive when it comes to e-waste, going so far as to have annual electronics collections where you can pack the car, drive up, and give it all to them to take it away for you.

We had first-hand experience of this initiative recently, managing to dispose of an embarrassing amount of old componentry – including a heavy Loewe TV, four VCRs, several fax machines, three coffee machines, three large CRT monitors, plus an assortment of random gadgets – in a single excursion.

Time to throw out those old coffee machines.

All of this was packed into a car, driven down to the council clean-up bins, organised for us, and then taken out and thrown into large containers by people paid to deal with this stuff.

From there, the recyclers sort through the plastic, glass, metal, and trace amounts of gold used in our electronic gadgets and reuse them in other projects. And our excess tech was gone from our life, never to bother us again. Very cleansing, it was.

Now, onto more important issues…

How to stay free of e-waste

You can never truly be free of electronic waste, as many of today’s gadgets will necessarily be replaced with newer, better models. But you can be concsious of how much e-waste you accumulate and, over time, deal with it accordingly.

Think, for example, about how you might repurpose equipment, using components to either extend its life or the usefulness of other equipment. Old technology isn’t necessarily bad technology, and many monitors, keyboards, sound systems, TVs and radio can find a home in secondary areas of your house – or the homes of people you know.

Going forward, it’s good to be aware of what you buy. We’re certainly don’t want to discourage you from your technology habit, but try to purchase only the technology that you need and use.

And when you do, choose well-built products that promises some longevity. We all like to save money, but buying a $49 printer multiple times because it’s cheaper than replacing the ink cartridges is not just a false economy, it adds up to a big fat e-waste footprint.