Some Pa. Goodwill stores will now recycle electronic waste for free

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Residents of the counties surrounding Philadelphia who have old computers, televisions, and microwaves can now donate them to Goodwill to be sold or recycled.

Goodwill Keystone Area recently announced a partnership with Reworld, the waste management company formerly known as Covanta. Reworld will recycle whatever electronics Goodwill stores cannot resell.

Goodwill stores have always accepted old phones, computers, keyboards, TVs, microwaves and other electronics. However, Andrew Gackenbach, chief retail operations officer at Goodwill Keystone Area, said they had difficulty recycling TVs, stereos, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, and other home electronics that could not be sold.

“We actually had … a significant portion of a warehouse with pallets of electronics that we were trying to figure out what to do with because we didn’t want to throw them away, but we didn’t have any real good partner to recycle them.”

He said the staff would collect and try to recycle them whenever a company or organization had one-off collection drives to recycle old electronics.

“In many cases it would become a pretty big expense for us to figure out how to responsibly deal with it,” he said.

Gackenbach said partnering with Reworld solves that problem.

“Giving us a partner where they can take the volume that we have without having to go … load by load and thinking through how we’re gonna recycle each … load or each pallet is really a game changer for us.”

He said there is a lot of demand for a program like this: shortly after they announced this partnership, the Goodwill stores around Harrisburg have already collected many pallets of old TVs. Stores will have new signs explaining what they can and cannot accept. For instance, they cannot accept refrigerators or washing machines.

Last year, Goodwill Keystone Area shipped more than 110,000 pounds of electronic waste to be recycled, according to Gackenbach.

Reworld already runs an electronic waste recycling site in Philadelphia. The site takes out batteries and ink or toner, then shreds the rest of the old electronics, explained Gordon Burgoyne, business manager for electronics recycling. He added that magnets and other methods are used to separate different metals and plastics, and the materials can be used for new products.

He said they pay for the recycling with the small amount of money they get from selling the recycled materials, which can vary depending on how much money those materials are worth on the market; and money from electronics manufacturers, which are required to cover the cost of recycling electronic waste under Pennsylvania law.

The ultimate goal is to prevent illegal dumping of electronic waste in rural areas or farmland, said Robert Bylone Jr. president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Recycling Market Center, a nonprofit that works on recycling in Pennsylvania. The center connected Goodwill Keystone Area to Reworld. He said before this partnership, there were only nine sites that would take any electronic waste for free and without being limited to a particular county or community, whereas now there are 42 more.

Covanta rebranded as Reworld this April. Last year, the Philadelphia City Council held a hearing over the city’s use of a controversial incinerator that Covanta, now Reworld, operates in Chester County.