New Zealanders got rid of nearly 1000 tonnes of old computer and mobile phone equipment on Saturday in the third annual eDay event.
The free drive-through recycling event saw 15,700 carloads of electronic waste (e-waste) dropped off at 38 centres nationally with at least another ten areas organising local community e-waste collections in the weeks leading up to eDay.
Saturday's 966 tonne collection was an increase on the 946
tonnes collected at last year's event.
The event was organised by Computer Access New Zealand (Canz).
It was aimed at raising awareness about the benefits of recycling computer equipment and the dangers of dumping e-waste in landfills.
The collection today saw more than 82,700 computer items including monitors, CPUs and printers collected for recycling.
"There is a clear need for e-waste disposal services as again we see strong support for eDay this year, national eDay coordinator Laurence Zwimpfer said.
"The total amount of e-waste collected today is enough to fill 55 shipping containers."
Environment Minister Nick Smith showed his support for eDay by helping in his hometown of Nelson.
Olympians Peter Fox, Barbara Kendall and Tom Ashley also joined the North Shore collection today.
Zwimpfer said e-waste contained many valuable and scarce materials that could be recovered and reused for new products instead of being dumped in landfills.
"As a nation we face a number of environmental challenges and e-waste is one of them.
"Our surveys have found that Kiwis are aware that dumping e-waste in landfills is not sustainable and eDay provides New Zealand households with an easy and free recycling option," Mr Zwimpfer said.
Equipment collected on eDay would be transported to Auckland and Dunedin where it would be sorted before being sent to accredited recycling companies in South Korea for recycling.
"They are able to recover over 95% of the materials in a computer for reuse including precious materials such as copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver," Zwimpfer said.
Click here to find out your nearest collection point
