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Free Electronic Recycling to End Soon in Lackawanna County

SCRANTON — Folks who live in Lackawanna County will soon have to start paying to get rid of old electronics – TVs, computers, or printers — that you...
Electronics_Wasteland

SCRANTON -- Folks who live in Lackawanna County will soon have to start paying to get rid of old electronics – TVs, computers, or printers -- that you don't use anymore.

County recycling officials are calling for changes to a state law on "e-cycling."

You may have seen old tube televisions thrown out with the garbage.

We found some along Main Street in Dickson City for the borough's annual spring cleaning garbage and recycling pick up.

But you may start to see more old TVs illegally dumped since residents in Lackawanna County will soon have to start paying to recycle electronics.

A garage at the Lackawanna County Recycling Center in Scranton is a sea of once-loved electronics, old TVs and computer monitors now headed for recycling.

The service was once free but that's about to change.

Throughout this "Earth Month" of April, Lackawanna County residents can e-cycle for free. But come May 1, there will be a charge.

"Well, I'm glad you told me that because I'll bring my things in before the end of the month. But, I don't know, I guess it's a sign of the times," said Dottie Bosley of Scranton.

Bosley came with other recyclables this time, but plans to return soon to avoid the fee of a$1per pound. It could be a hefty charge depending on the size of your old big screen TV.

Bosley says on the way over to the recycling center, she passed a familiar sight: old TVs left as garbage.

"If it was happening before, it will be happening even more so now."

Lackawanna County's recycling coordinator Barbara Giovagnoli says the new fee is a result of a 2013 change in state law that requiring electronics to be recycled.

It made recycling companies money for a few years, but that profit, like your tube TV, has now gone by the wayside.

"But the old machines, the old TVs, the old monitors and screens, they're heavy. and actually, they're CRT, it's got lead in it. So there aren't markets for that kind of material so it's posing a problem in the recycling industry at large," Giovagnoli explained.

Giovagnoli says that e-cycling law has now been reopened. State lawmakers are trying to make e-cycling a viable business again.

Until then, it's us footing the bill.

"It's just a matter of fixing what was already put in place, and I know it will happen, but everybody's trying to do it right," Giovagnoli said.

The Lackawanna County Recycling Center's extension of free electronic recycling goes through the end of this month and is available only to Lackawanna County residents.

If you want to go and drop something off, you'll have to show a picture ID.

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