Newark Electronic Waste Collection Event Celebrates Earth Day

NEWARK, NJ--(Marketwired - Apr 17, 2014) -  This Earth Day, Newark residents are encouraged to empty their cluttered closets, drawers and garages and bring their old electronics to a free e-waste collection event on Tuesday, April 22. The event will take place at Peter Francisco Park, located between Edison Place and Ferry Street near Penn Station in Newark's Ironbound District from 7:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. The event, a partnership between private companies and public organizations, is being hosted by the Ironbound Business Improvement District (IBID); Covanta, a world leading sustainable waste management company, and Panasonic; in cooperation with the City of Newark and Urban Renewal Corporation, a local not-for-profit emergency housing and social services organization.

The collection is an effort to increase the amount of electronics that are recycled, in turn reducing the amount of electronics discarded in regular household trash. Many electronics contain a wide variety of materials that can be recycled, which reduces energy use and the need to mine more raw materials from the earth. In addition, many electronics contain components which can be hazardous in the waste stream and should not be thrown away.

Collected materials will be recycled at Covanta's electronic waste processing facility, an R2 and e-Stewards certified operation, and at Urban Renewal's Training & Development Center located in the greater Newark area and at their R2 facility in Philadelphia. Both entities provide data destruction security measures, however it is recommended that residents wipe all data from their devices prior to dropping them off.

Newark Mayor Luis A. Quintana commented, "My administration is committed to taking a leadership role in creating a greener and more environmentally sustainable City of Newark. We are working to strengthen our Environmental Commission and the Newark Sustainability Office and are proud of the partnerships we have developed with the public, private, and non-profit community to encourage environmentally-friendly programs, initiatives, and activities. We urge all residents to remember to take old electronics to responsible local recyclers and not to throw them into the trash. This advances our commitment to going Zero Waste. We want to thank all the partners involved in helping to get e-waste out of the trash today and look forward to continuing those partnerships. Whether we build green buildings, develop urban farms, recycle waste, or plant trees, we are empowering and uniting our entire community at all levels to protect the environment of the City and planet that we all call our home."