2025: Episode 1: The Why Behind Our Electronics Drop-Off Day

Join Hana Berres, our Stormwater Program Manager for the "Why" behind our Electronics Drop-Off Day that is coming up Jan. 25 at the Birmingham Zoo. She will walk us through what you can bring, why its important, and what will happen if Mother Nature gets all crazy on us. For more information you can always visit our "Keep It Clean" page for information on this event and a 2025 calendar of all events. You can also call the stormwater program at 205-325-8741. 

Have an idea for a County podcast? Contact the Director of Public Information, Helen Hays at haysh@jccal.org

Transcript

Speaker 0:12

Welcome to the Jefferson County Podcast for the People. I'm your host today. I'm Helen Hayes. I'm the Director of Public Information for Jefferson County. And with me today, we have a familiar guest, but we always love this guest. This is Hanna Berres, and she is now the Education Training Manager for the Jefferson County Stormwater Program. Welcome, Hanna. And we are in 2025 and a new year with a whole new year of events, right? Absolutely. And thank you for having me. Well, first we're going to talk about January 25th. We have is going to be our first event of the year. It's at the Birmingham Zoo. It's an electronics drop-off day. And we've talked about electronics and we talked about what people can bring, but we we never really touched on and gone into depth about why and what is e-waste. Can you talk a little bit and explain what is e-waste and why is electronics recycling really important?

Speaker 1 1:11

So e-waste is basically unwanted or unused electronics. They contain different elements and minerals that, when put in a residential landfill, could be harmful. Our residential landfills are not equipped to handle these types of elements, such as cadmium and mercury, lead, arsenic, and those types of things. So what we want to do is capture these elements through an electronic event and be able to put these elements back into the manufacturing process. So they can be re reused in future electronics and other devices.

Speaker 1:51

Yeah, because I think I've read where that's not necessarily mined here in the US, although some of it is, but if you recycle this e-waste, then you have to do less mining for these essential, you know, minerals that are in some of our electronics, right? That's right.

Speaker 1 2:07

And so this is critical habitat for a lot of wildlife. So the more that we can capture and reclaim, not only does it also increase jobs in America, it also allows us to reuse what we have. Why do we need to dig for more when we already have what we need? So let's in and we do still need a mine. I'm not saying that this is ever going to take that place, but to the degree of what we're mining out, this can definitely offset it. All right.

Speaker 2:37

Fabulous. So next, we also are going to offer paper shredding at this event, right? Yes.

Speaker 1 2:44

And in January is the perfect time to do some paper shredding because we're all getting ready for that. Oh tax season. So let's go ahead and make sure that our documents are well taken care of. If you don't have a paper shredder at home, bring paper up to five boxes because we want to be polite for everybody. Right. Um, and bring it, and we do paper shredding on site. So what's going to happen is your paper is going to go into a large trash can. The trash can will then be put onto the truck and you'll hear it when you drive up, and it'll be uh shredded on site. Now, one thing though, please know that you might not be able to stay and watch your item specifically shredded, but we promise you our business is to keep your business secure. So it will be shredded. Don't worry. And um, yeah, so bring bring us what you can. One thing that we ask that you do is remove the gem clips, like those black big bull dollars, I think bull clips or something. We can do staples, so you don't have to be so meticulous with that. But any large metal, just be kind and try to get as much as you can off.

Speaker 3:54

So, you can't binder clips, you know, and things that people put on stuff, make sure it's free of all that kind of stuff, right?

Speaker 1 4:01

Yeah, and we try not to put plastic because this is machinery. So if you have an envelope, remove the envelope and you can recycle that with normal paper. But this specifically is documents we want to shred with, you know, your vital information that you don't want other people to have.

Speaker 4:17

Okay. What about cardboard boxes and that kind of stuff?

Speaker 1 4:20

But no, this is not that type of recycling. So, what there are many opportunities throughout Jefferson County where they will accept cardboard. And you can certainly bring your items in a cardboard box, but what we'll do is we'll dump the material, the papers, into the trash can and give you back your box. And that way you can save it for next year. Awesome.

Speaker 4:40

Always need a box. Yep. My cat my cats love a box, so there you are. All right. So we've been doing this for a few years now. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what success have we seen? Have we seen an increase over time? And what people is this beginning to catch on? Are we making a dent?

Speaker 1 5:01

So I was having a conversation with our vendor getting ready for the upcoming event. And one of the things that we do this is to televisions, old CRT monitors and uh televisions alike all have items that we certainly don't want to break. When it breaks, it can volatize elements into the air. So one of the reasons we do this is to overcome the financial barriers of people having to dispose of these items. And we are seeing a decline in the CRT monitors and television. So we know that people have been bringing them, but there's less out there. So we're excited about that. In addition, the attendance has increased every year. So we're really excited. And having an increased attendance does give us some other issues as far as trying to traffic control. But it's a good thing that we at Jefferson County have traffic engineers and we understand what's going to happen and we have laid out a better plan. Each year we get better and better. So we do ask that you bring patience, but we estimate about a 20-minute uh event time from start to finish.

Speaker 6:13

Okay, that sounds good. And if people get there early, I know you're not gonna start early.

Speaker 1 6:19

Yeah, so we have we're gonna have over a hundred workers at this event. And ironically, we're at the zoo, so it will be a zoo in the beginning. We will put you in line and make sure that everybody is gonna be processed as when they come, but coming early is not necessarily good for us because we do have to set up this uh the site location in the parking lot. So just bear with us again, bring your patience. And if you do arrive early because you want to make sure that we have enough room, that's perfectly fine. Bring a newspaper or you know, read your news on your iPad. And I promise you that we will open up the event as fast as we can and get everybody in and started and unloaded with the best ease. I promise you, our staff workers want you in and out just as fast as you want to get in and out.

Speaker 7:08

I know I've been there and I've seen how hard you guys have worked on the traffic flow for these events to make sure that that happens. So kudos to you guys. Um let's talk about the specifics of the day. January 25th, what time are we starting?

Speaker 1 7:23

9 a.m. and we end at 11 30 a.m. Now, if there is a line, do not panic. We are we uh have uh procedures in place so that at come at 11:30, if we have a line on either side of Cahaba Road, that we will service everybody and anybody that is in line.

unknown 7:41

Okay.

Speaker 7:41

What happens if it rains?

Speaker 1 7:43

Um, we are going to work in the rain. That's what we've done in the past. Now, for lightning or any other severe weather, we may pause the event. However, we will start right back up. Now, if it is severe weather like what we're going to be experiencing soon, then uh look at jccal.org. Uh and if we do have to postpone this particular event, it will take place the following weekend, same time, same place. But you can always check out jccal.org or call our office 205-325-8741, and we can give you the most updated information.

Speaker 8:24

That's great. We'll put those links in the show notes too. You know, we'll post on our social media channels if something happens. It's Alabama. The weather's crazy, so we never know.

Speaker 1 8:35

But um if you do call our phone number, I'm gonna be changing the voicemail. So we will have it on the recording should you have to call our phone number at 3258741. We're trying to get out the information as best as possible.

Speaker 8:49

Great. So let's talk too. We haven't talked a lot about our partners with this. We don't we don't do these events alone.

Speaker 1 8:57

No, we can't. There's we're trying to reach everybody in Jefferson County and bringing more people into the uh project is for better of everyone. So this particular one, the Birmingham Zoo reached out to us. They want to be proactive. They have a mission that is for conservation. So they saw this as a positive benefit to meet their goals and their role. So that's why they're our biggest partner, allowing us use of the facility. In addition, we have New Core Steel Birmingham that is funding this event along with the city of Mount Brook. So Jefferson County Commission uh also is donating, I say donating, allotting funds for this event. And so we're also giving staff. So we're gonna have a hundred people out there, but the staff is also coming from our other wonderful stormwater program partners, and that would be the city of Birmingham and Keep Birmingham Beautiful, the City of Bessemer Stormwater Program, the City of Leeds and their stormwater program, and we also have Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and we have the Alabama Conservation District, the Jefferson, the Jefferson County, Alabama Conservation District is also a lot. Yeah. And I always get tongue-tied. Oh, and I forgot another wonderful partner who also helps fund some of these events during the year is the Jefferson County Department of Health. So I don't want to negate them. And they bring staff at every single one of these events, as well as most of the other stormwater programs.

Speaker 10:38

So that's fabulous. We'll also post a link. We have a whole schedule of events for the year. So this is just our first one. We'll have the household um hazardous waste day in April. We have some other electronic take back days, and then we'll have another hazardous waste uh day in October that we do just on um the Jefferson County, Camp Katona, and Camp Bessemer. So all those are posted. We have the special uh Keep It Clean page on the website, Jefferson County website. So we'll link to that as well so people can see the full year calendar event of events and um, you know, put it uh come to the one that fits their schedule. They're gonna be in different locations throughout the year. I'm excited to kick off the new year. I'm excited that your office and your programs and your efforts are paying off. And uh we we hate trash on the side of the roads and that sort of thing. So this is just one of those events where people can, you know, don't bury the stuff in your garbage can, you know, bring it to us. We can take care of it. It's free. So we just want to make sure that people are aware that it's available for them and it's a service to the citizens of Jefferson County and all of the citizens. This is one of those things that's open to anybody that lives in Jefferson County, right?

Speaker 1 11:53

Yes, in addition to those uh three cities that straddle Jefferson County, so the city of Leeds, City of Birmingham, and the city of Hoover. So, regardless, if you live within those cities and you're in a different county, you're also entitled to come to this event at no charge. And great. One thing I want to say is a lot of people don't recognize what we consider e-waste, what they can recycle. So I want people to go through their kitchen if you got a new appliance, if you have an old or outdated appliance. Uh, think about space heaters. Now's the time with a cold. Did your space heater, did you get an upgrade? Do you not want the other one? Uh so be looking at that. Go into your bathroom, you know, hair dryers and curling irons and things of that nature are also included. The obvious is going to be the televisions, but also what about your security equipment? So that is also something that we talk about, or your landscape lighting outside. Did they go out? So these are some of the things that people might not consider would be electronics. A very good guess would be if it has rechargeable batteries, except for lawn equipment, and if you have a cord to it, chances are that is going to be considered an electronic device. And again, these devices contain elements and minerals that we don't want ending up in our landfill. We want to divert them from our residential landfill, hence us giving you these opportunities.

Speaker 13:20

Absolutely. Well, Hanna, thank you for being with us today. We really appreciate it. And we'll check in back with you later in the year. And I want to thank everybody who's listened to the Jefferson County Podcast for the people. If you have an idea or something you want to know more about with the county and if we do that and what we do, please shoot me an email. My email is Hayes H A Y S H at JCCAL dot org, and I'll be happy to try to get that taken care of for you. So we'll see you next time on the Jefferson County Podcast for the people.