Well, Tuesday night has arrived.  Kyle is off for the evening at a class he's taking towards his Masters Degree.  I usually use this night to get caught up on house-work; dishes, laundry, etc etc.  But tonight I'm not getting much work done.  I've been fighting a cold for the past two weeks so I resolved to pay the bills, read up about beekeeping, finish the transfer paperwork for our goats, and work on today's blog post.  Shortly after arriving home I came to the realization that something was strangely amiss with my laptop. 

It had been plugged in all day but the battery indicator was showing as nearly empty.  Sure enough, when I unplugged the darned thing it immediately shut off and would not start back up again until I re-attached the power cable.  Looking online at replacement batteries that were listed at a minimum of $80 I was immediately shocked and irritated by the company who makes these things as it is only a couple years old.  This of course brings me to my rant for the evening- our throw-away society.

Most electronic devices nowadays are only meant to last for about two years.  According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2005 about 5.3 billion pounds of ewaste was disposed of in landfills.  The major trouble with throwing away all these little things is most contain quantities of lead and arsenic which are well-known carcinogens.  When these are buried in landfills the chemicals leach into the ground and eventually join with the groundwater, where it is consumed by billions of people.

Of course, with the way the world is now, a person can't seem to manage without a cell phone or a computer.  There is probably nothing we can really do about that (I'll most certainly fork over the $80 or $100 for a new battery for my laptop) but we certainly can make an effort to be sure the replaced item makes it to a proper recylcing facility.

You can find some information about recycling your old cellphones and computers at the Environmental Protection Agency's website or even at your local recycling center.