Electronic recycling

Feeling guilty about dumping your old computer or your broken iPod in the landfill? Still figuring out what to do with that analog-tuner television?

Mark down Aug. 8 on your calendar. Executive Director Patti Reakes-Collins of Keep Odessa Beautiful said five recycling centers in West Texas, including one in Odessa, will take the old and unwanted household electronic waste and haul it to a recycling center in Houston.

The Household Hazardous Waste site and the Odessa Recycle Time Machine at 814 and 816 W. 42nd St. will take the electronics for Odessa and Midland only on Aug. 8, while recycling centers in Andrews, Seminole, Fort Stockton and Big Spring will open that day and will continue collecting for the rest of the month.

"I hate to say this but in the past we had to tell people ‘just put them in the dumpster,' they were going to end up in the landfill," she said. "We didn't have any place to put them."

For August, Eco International has a contract with Odessa and Midland to haul TVs, computers, phones and other electronics free of charge as long as the two collect at least 20 pallets, or five tons of electronic trash. Reakes-Collins predicted collecting about 200 pallets from Odessa/Midland alone.

"We feel we can get all the TVs in and keep them from going to the landfill on that particular day," she said.

Keep Odessa Beautiful and the Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission will spend about $2,000 in advertising for this effort through a grant.

They will only collect household electronics. Business and industrial trash will not be accepted.

Abraham Zavala of Time Machine said they will also collect all the waste they normally wouldn't take, such as tires, as they have done back in April.

"It's like another Earth Day basically," Zavala said.