Electronics recycling does compute

On Sat., Oct. 16, the Department of Sanitation and Lower East Side Ecology Center will sponsor electronics recycling collection at the southeast corner of Sixth Ave. and Bleecker St., by the Little Red School House from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. People are asked to bring old computers (laptop and desktop), cables, cellphones, keyboards, mice, monitors, printers and scanners. Many computer parts contain hazardous materials, such as lead, mercury and cadmium, so it’s best to keep these out of the waste stream, recycling advocates say. “There will be an avalanche of computers” being discarded soon as new models make them outmoded, said the Ecology Center’s Christine Datz-Romero. “People want flat screen. Most stuff we are getting are old clunkers. If it doesn’t have a Pentium II or above, it’s scavenged for parts.”