'I don't know where to throw my old junk'

Indonesia does not have a formal industry for the disposal and recycling of old electronic goods. As a result, discarded household electronic appliances and personal electronics such as computers and cell phones have been piling up since their widespread introduction to the country in the early 1980s. Many of these items contain carcinogenic substances that, if improperly disposed off, could damage the environment. The Jakarta Post asked some residents what they did with their old gadgets.

Ellysa, 32, is an art director for an advertising agency on Jl. Sudirman, South Jakarta. She lives on Jl. Brawijaya, also in South Jakarta, with her family:

I don't often change my electronic appliances. I pick appliances that last a long time and don't add new features with each new model. I changed my last cell phone after three years -- and that was after my friends bugged me to get a new one.

I don't throw away the gadgets I no longer use. Some of them are still being stored in my house. Some were traded in, and the others I gave to my relatives.

I have a laser disc player back home. I wanted to sell it but my friend said it was hardly worth anything, maybe Rp 50,000 (US$5.55).

I don't know where to throw away these electronic goods, which contain materials that could harm the environment. Maybe mechanics could take them apart and use the parts to make other things?

Richard Samuel Tumawas, 32, is a teacher at a Montessori school in Sunter, North Jakarta. He lives with his family at Jl. Fatmawati, South Jakarta:

I do have gadgets, like a PDA, mobile phone, CD player and the like, but I don't think I qualify as a gadget-freak. I always make optimum use of the gadgets, until it is necessary to change them. I usually trade the old one in if I need a new one.

The one thing that I update periodically is my computer. My background is in information technology, actually, so I am quite keen on computers.

Once I gave an old computer to a vendor, but I don't know what he did with it.

--The Jakarta Post