Hollins University students wrap up discarded computer monitors last week for recycling. This "e-waste" can damage people and the environment. Jeanna Duerscherl/The Roanoke Times

e-waste OK -------- Computer processing units and monitors Keyboards Speakers Cellphones Pagers Cameras and camcorders Game systems Televisions Electronics in wood cabinets Printers and scanners Surge protectors Telephones Not OK -------- Loose batteries Batteries not integral to computer systems Cardboard Cracked or broken cathode ray tube monitors Hair dryers and curling irons Hazardous equipment Microwaves Overhead projectors Paper Styrofoam Toner cartridges

The video focused on problems with improperly discarded electronics. It showed scenes of poor workers in China standing amid piles of rubble, hammering away at lead- and mercury-laced cathode ray tubes from computer monitors, in an attempt to retrieve small quantities of gold or copper wire inside.

Then it all hit home.

In a sequence about how carelessly such items containing sensitive information are junked, the names of colleges, school divisions and government agencies that had owned the computers flashed across the screen.

“It was enlightening to me, and also scary at the same time,” said Henderson, who now works as the director of information technology at Hollins University.

That was the genesis of an e-waste collection this week at Hollins that university officials hope will become the largest ever in Virginia.

Hollins will begin the collection effort Wednesday. It has arranged for an electronics recycling company in Massachusetts to collect unwanted electronic devices from area business and schools. On Saturday, the public can drop off old fax machines, computers, broken Nintendos, printers and televisions.

Henderson and the others hope to collect 200 tons of e-waste.

“This is my way of trying to go back and try to clean up what I’ve actually helped contribute to,” he said.

Planning for the collection began a year ago, and the effort has educated Hollins students, too. Henderson has been working with biology professor and environmental studies director Renee Godard to promote the hazards of e-waste to students and others throughout the Roanoke Valley.

The effort at Hollins already has spread. Virginia Tech, Old Dominion University and the University of Richmond have signed on as co-sponsors. Volunteers at Hampden-Sydney College already have collected 20 tons of electronics to be picked up for recycling. And word still is spreading about the event.

“It says a lot,” Alex Herring, 18, a freshman pre-pharmacy major from Clinton, N.C., said about the event. “It shows that Hollins cares.”

Each year, at least 5 million tons of e-waste are improperly discarded in the United States, according to the environmental group Basel Action Network. The Seattle-based nonprofit organization is named for the Basel Convention , a 1989 document that asked countries to stop free trade in hazardous waste and to not dump e-waste in developing countries, rules not strictly enforced by the United States. The group has also produced documentaries on e-waste and its impact.

In modern electronics recycling plants, machines and trained workers harvest metals from the devices and dispose of hazardous components. But in developing countries, where hundreds of thousands of tons of discarded electronics are shipped each year, that’s not the case, said Sarah Westervelt, e-waste programs director for the Basel Action Network.

“There’s so much of an economic incentive to just sell this waste to brokers who mostly ship it directly to China, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, Eastern Europe, South America because waste generators basically have to choose between getting paid or paying to have it [e-waste] responsibly managed,” Westervelt said.

Much of the time poor, unskilled workers will take a hammer and screwdriver to the equipment. Often, the workers unwittingly ingest lead, mercury and other dangerous chemicals or improperly dispose of them, poisoning themselves and their environment, Westervelt said.

Third World countries rarely have stringent environmental or safety regulations for workers.

“Things we take for granted in this country are just nonexistent in developing countries,” Westervelt said.

The equipment collected by Hollins will be picked up and transported to Massachusetts. There, it will be dismantled by Metech International, an electronics recycling company. The computer hard drives will be ripped apart, ensuring the information contained on them can’t be retrieved, Godard said. And, the toxic elements inside the computer will be properly handled.

The reality is, the need for electronics recycling is just entering the public consciousness . As newer technology comes out, it becomes necessary to replace other items, Henderson said, citing fluorescent light bulbs and hybrid-car battery packs as examples.

And as for older computer equipment, it’s often difficult to try to give it away, he said.

Hollins began its own e-waste collection on Oct. 1, when about 25 students and faculty hauled dusty, beige computer monitors and laptops from the basement of the Dana Science Building to its loading dock.

Few people are interested in beige-colored monitors and processing units; the color is a telltale sign of the devices’ age, Henderson said. And though some people might be interested in the newer, black monitors that were being stacked on the pallets, those too are ancient by technological standards.

Participants tossed keyboards, mouses, VCRs and old fax machines into enormous cardboard boxes.

The computer monitors and processing units were stacked onto palettes and rolled up in plastic wrap.

All told, they had 15 tons of old computer components, copiers and even a microfilm reader — from one small, private university.

Sophomore biology major Donita Burks said she is proud the university has taken on a project that could have a significant impact .

“If Hollins could do it,” she said, “anyone can do it.”