Naperville’s electronics drop-off program is down, but it might not be entirely out.
City staff said this week that they are working on finding a hauler to replace New Life Electronics Recycling, which has not been consistently collecting the devices dropped off at the collection center at Fort Hill Drive and Jefferson Avenue. The city could face significant expense for disposing of the items that have accumulated at the site, unless a new arrangement can be made.
After being available twice weekly to all regional residents since May 2011, the center will operate for a final time from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
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Diedra O’Neil, who said she is a 30-year resident, this week urged officials to find a way to keep the program available.
“As you know, we can’t put electronics out to the curb with the rest of our trash or with our recycling materials. We can’t put electronics in landfills,” O’Neil said during Tuesday’s City Council meeting, alluding to a statewide ban enacted in 2012.
She noted that she received no notice of the change from the city.
“I think this is a vital service in this day and age,” she said, noting that she and her neighbors have made use of the program numerous times.
Dick Dublinski, director of public works, acknowledged the drop-off center has been popular. The issue driving the program’s suspension, he said, is money.
“The reason is the cost of recycling…. Without the state stepping in and helping with that delta that we have, the city hasn’t budgeted for that,” Dublinski said.
New Life has been struggling since last April, he said, and the city in June implemented a cap of one television or monitor per vehicle, to accommodate the hauler’s limitations. New Life owner Matt Gatz told The Sun last week that the situation worsened in July, when the state stopped allowing haulers to charge a fee for their municipal programs.
Dublinski said he’s been shopping the options.
“We have been on the phone with multiple vendors this week, and we think that we have solutions coming forward,” he said. “But until I know for sure that there are solutions coming forward, I can’t be a dumping ground for all this stuff.”
The city’s drop-off center initially was subsidized by fees paid by manufacturers to the state, but as the prices of some of the processes increased, the sums became insufficient to cover the costs.
Councilwoman Judy Brodhead on Tuesday agreed it’s a difficult service to give up. With electronics technology briskly evolving, she noted, many residents accumulate devices that have promptly become obsolete as newer innovations replace them.
“At this point, who doesn’t have a few old computers that they’d like to get out of the basement or the bedroom of that kid who went to college six or seven years ago?” she said.
Brodhead inquired whether the problem is being seen elsewhere, and Dublinski confirmed that’s the case, but he said Illinois especially has trouble. That’s because manufacturers no longer cover enough of the cost, he said, and the state is not providing subsidy funds – a factor Gatz also cited among the variables that have made his company’s work more challenging.
Electronic items contain potentially toxic minerals, such as lead, mercury and cadmium, which can seep into landfills and pose environmental and health hazards.
“It is very hazardous, some of this material,” Dublinski said.
Some of the elements in the devices, however, have monetary value that merits salvaging efforts.
“There are some great things in there that can be recycled, and technology will improve, and they will find ways to do this (but) until we figure out how to handle it, it’s going to be a problem,” he said, estimating that retaining a processor for the backlog of electronics now at the public works facility will cost $30,000.
The city reported in a recent news release that before the agreement with New Life went into effect earlier this year, it paid $7,000 monthly for several months to have the materials hauled away.
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