Electronics can’t just be tossed away in the trash to head for the landfill. Trying to find someone who recycles or properly disposes of old computers, cell phones and gaming systems can be a frustrating process.

These items contain toxic substances, but there are a few ways to discard them safely.

At Radio Shack, owner Bob Montgomery said they have some capacity to handle rechargeable batteries and older working electronics.

“If it’s a rechargeable battery, cell phone, or cell phone charger, we have a company that sends us boxes and we recycle those items. We don’t take cordless phone batteries,” he said. “They send us a box with little envelopes. When we fill the box it’s got it’s got a call tag on it, and UPS picks it up.”

Montgomery has developed a foreign outlet for old computers as well.

“At my church, we store old computers that still work, and we take those to Mexico with us and we give them to the schools and churches down there,” he said. “We probably take 40 or 50 a year to Mexico on our mission trips.”

Fenton Rood, director of waste systems planning for the Oklahoma Department of Environment Quality, said Oklahoma statutes make recycling mandatory.

“We have a state law that requires any manufacturer who wants to sell in Oklahoma to provide recycling at no cost to their customers,” he said. “Most of them let you print a computer label off their Web site. That label can be used to send the product back.”

Included in the statutes is a definition describing computers, monitors and other peripherals. It does not include televisions. Rood said there is a quick way to find out more.

“People can go to our Web site at deq.state.ok.us and click the green banner that says Land Protection,” he said. “On the page that comes up, on the top right, there is a link named Computer Equipment Recycling. We’re trying to provide the public with a list of everything we know about electronic recycling industry in Oklahoma.”

Rood said certain types of electronic waste such as monitors have components that are toxic or poisonous. He said every monitor has three to five pounds of lead in it, and lead is a human poison.

“On the other hand, I do not expect the toxins in landfills to leach or leak into the surrounding earth,” he said. “But we don’t want to intentionally put toxic materials into the landfill, especially if there’s a good alternative like recycling.”

At Quickservice Steel Co., buyer Kenny Williams said they will take only a certain type of electronics.

“We do computers but not the screens,” he said. “We don’t actually process them here. There are buyers out there who buy them and go through and properly recover the metals.”

Williams said people sporadically bring in old computers, but the business is expanding.

“With today’s technology and the quick changes, it’s definitely a growing market but it’s not something that’s fully developed yet by any means,” he said. “We’ll probably start tracking it in the near future.”

Reach Keith Purtell at 684-2925 or kpurtell@muskogeephoenix.com.