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

'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