According to the
Environmental Protection Agency, used and unwanted electronics are by far the fastest growing segment of solid waste in the United States. In fact, e-waste, as it's known, has become such a serious issue domestically that President Barack Obama recently created a
task force that will be charged with combating the growing problem, which generally begins when electronics end up in landfills, or in developing nations that lack the capacity to dispose of them safely.
And yet in the Greater Philadelphia region, at least, the e-waste situation is about to become a little less dire. That's because the Minnesota-based
Materials Processing Company is currently in the midst of constructing an e-waste recycling center on approximately 110,000 square feet of land near the Northeast Airport.
Unfortunately, the facility won't be structured to regularly accept donations from individuals, although according to Alan Yousha, VP of Business Development and Marketing for MPC, residents certainly won't be turned away if they show up with old computer monitors or cell phones.
"It's not so much a residential drop-off site as it is a location that residential drop-off sites will bring material to," explains Yousha, who also claims that Mayor Nutter's
Greenworks initiative was a major determining factor in MPC's decision to locate its facility in Philadelphia, as opposed to, say, South Jersey or Central Pennsylvania. "It's clear that they actually want to make this (Greenworks Initiative) happen," Yousha adds. "So that makes it a little easier to function."
MPC, which is an
ISO certified company as well as a 100-percent zero landfill company, plans to have its local facility up and running by mid-February at the latest.
Source: Alan Yousha, Materials Processing Company
Writer: Dan Eldridge
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