GovernmentExecutive.com

The Environmental Protection Agency has teamed up with Dell Inc. and Louisiana's Environmental Quality Department to hold an e-waste drop-off day this Saturday in New Orleans to collect electronic equipment that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Consumers can drop off unwanted computer equipment, televisions, VCRs, digital videodisc players, radios and other electronic devices as part of a region-wide clean up effort.

The e-waste will be separated into basic components of metals, plastics and glass, and properly disposed, an EPA spokeswoman said. This will be the first of many similar drop-off events to be held in the region, she added.

The National Recycling Coalition, Jefferson Parish and the town of Kenner, La., also are members of the partnership. Consumers can drop-off their equipment at the Pontchartrain Center, a convention facility in Kenner, near New Orleans.

COMMENTS

• Is anyone collecting TVs and computers from the houses that are to be bulldozed in New Orleans? Absent owners cannot bring their electronics to a collection event. If as many as 50,000 homes are to be razed, and people have not been able to come in and remove this stuff, there could be half-a million to a million pounds of lead released into the environment, which has already been diagnosed as lead-contaminated. Not to mention the hazards to the bulldozing personnel from electronics that have not been discharged or had their vacuum released. There probably aren't very many homes that lack TVs, and probably 30 percent have computers as well. Karen Carlson Posted January 7, 2006 4:10 PM