Collecting e-waste is not easy, though its name sounds as if it should be.
Today's world is digital. That is, small and light, with transistors working at nano speeds. But yesterday's wall-sized television screen weighed so many pounds, it required adults to move it.
Collecting and disposing of this heavy e-waste makes for a popular and satisfying Saturday morning each year in the Atlanta Amity Club's annual electronic E-Waste Day. This year was the club's 13th venture.
Three bays of Guard-Line's loading dock at the Atlanta Business Park Saturday were in use as vehicles rolled into the area filled with electronic items to be cast away, some of which were still working but not wanted.
By the end of the five-hour collection window, 22 boxes were filled, enough items to fill an entire 18-wheel tractor-trailer. Even more was loaded into a small trailer with still several pallets left to await yet another small trailer, club officials said.
"This is more than the 90,000 pounds we collected last year," said e-waste collection leader Rosalie Griffin.
"This will all be kept out of our landfill. Our mayor, Travis Ransom, has told us the town's landfill is becoming full. It's important that we do this for our environment."
Club Member Marie Shelton emphasized the important lesson of not disposing electronic waste improperly because of hazardous materials inside.
The club's task would not have been possible without the help of Boy Scout Troop 47 and its leaders Scott Caver and John Baker. The young guys sweated and worked hard during the five hours of unloading, making good use of the donuts, apples, bananas and drinks for energy.
Among the scouts were Mitchell Winders, James Joslin, Drake Black, Robert Wimberly and Kolby Caver.
The filled boxes will be picked up here by UNICOR's 18-wheeler and trucked to the Federal Correction Institution's electronics recycling center in Texarkana where people there will gain vocational skills salvaging the equipment.
Another advantage of the effort is that cell phones are collected and donated to the Domestic Violence Prevention center for refurbishing to allow clients to call 911 in case of an emergency.