They’re stashed in closets, back rooms, garages, and basements until somebody figures out what to do worth them. A new effort is being started to keep more of our worn-out electronic gear from going into landfills. A lot of it already goes there. But many of these things just become junk at home, too big or bulky to go into the garbage, useless to owners and likely to become more useless as technology changes.
Television sets. Senator Dan Clemens of Marshfield says 27-million televisions were thrown away last year and an estimated 99-million TVs are piled up in closets, basements and garages. "Eighty-six percent of old televisions currently wind up in landfills. And they have between four and eight pounds of lead in them," he says. He wants the legislature to establish a manufacturer’s recycling program that would begin with labeling in 20-11 and full-blown recycling in 20-12. Clemens sponsored last year’s law that sets up recycling programs for worn-out computers. He expects
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