The City of Madison's Streets Division and Cascade Asset Management announced today that residents have recycled 39.1 tons of electronics since the City began offering a year round drop off recycling program for computers, televisions and other consumer electronics in January, 2008. Residents can take advantage of two year-round drop-off sites (one located on the city's east side at 4602 Sycamore Ave. and the other on the west side at 1501 W. Badger Rd.).

Prior to the new program the City collected computers and electronics at the curb and sent those items to the landfill. Twice a year, the City partnered with Cascade to hold Computer Recycling Roundups for these items. The Roundups have been discontinued because of the new year round program.

"The twice a year events were quite successful, Madison recycling coordinator George Dreckmann said. "But we knew that an awful lot of material that could be recycled was going to the landfill. The best way to meet our goal of recycling all old TV's and computers was to set up a year round drop off program and discontinue curbside collection."

These items must now be brought to one of the two drop off sites for recycling. For a fee of $10.00, residents can recycle CPU's, Monitors, Laptop, Computers, and Televisions. This is $5 less than the fees for the old program that landfilled these items. In addition, the following items can be recycled free of charge: Keyboards, Miscellaneous Computer Parts, Scanners, Mouse, Printers, Cables, Stereo components, VCRs, Cell Phones, Telephones, DVD Players, and Typewriters.

The equipment collected at the drop off locations will be responsibly recycled locally by Cascade Asset Management, Wisconsin's premier IT asset retirement service. Cascade's process for secure destruction of information on computer equipment will ensure all personal data on equipment dropped off is safely removed.

The City anticipates heightened participation in the electronics drop-off program as residents purchase new televisions and retire their older unit in anticipation of the conversion to HDTV.

The drop off program is limited to City of Madison residents, businesses, and property owners only. For more information about this program please visit the City's website at http://www.cityofmadison.com/streets or call 267-2626.