Residents and small businesses in Victoria’s City of Darebin can now dispose of unwanted computers and related equipment through Council’s new Byteback™ program at the Darebin Resource Recovery Centre. The free program, run bySustainability Victoria, was launched by Darebin Mayor, Councillor Peter Stephenson, on 28 February at the Darebin Resource Recovery Centre in Reservoir.
“In the past people have thrown old computers out with hard waste but now you can dispose of them in a more environmentally responsible way,” Councillor Stephenson said. “Most homes have old computer equipment lying around, so if people want to get rid of that Commodore 64 in the closet or the bubble-jet in the back shed, they can take them to Byteback™.”
The free Byteback™ recycling program offers an environmentally responsible way to dispose of computers, allowing reusable materials to be extracted and keeping landfill free of harmful leaching that can occur from the machines’ chemical and material components. The collected equipment is taken to a specialist centre to be disassembled for recovery and recycling.
Byteback™ is an initiative of Sustainability Victoria and the Australian Information Industry Association in association with founding partners Hewlett Packard (HP), Apple, Canon, Dell, Epson, Fujitsu, Fuji-Xerox, IBM, Lenovo and Lexmark.
“This is a great example of an Extended Producer Responsibility program where government and industry share the responsibility for addressing a significant waste issue, in this case the safe disposal of computer waste,” the Mayor said.
“We commend Sustainability Victoria and the computer industry’s efforts and we hope that Darebin’s early involvement in Byteback™ will help to inform similar waste management programs in other parts of the country and in other industries.”
Byteback™ recycling service is free, with a maximum 10 items per visit to all Victorian householders and small business owners.
Recyclable items accepted by Byteback™ include computers and related equipment, such as CPUs, monitors, laptops, small servers and peripherals such as printers, multifunction devices, keyboards and mouses.
For further information contact Monique Bouma on (03) 8470 8511.
