Have you ever wondered how you can recycle e-waste responsibly in Singapore?
Chances are, if you’ve not done so before, you probably will at some time soon given that it’s common for households here to have 2 or more desktops or laptops lying around the home.
Recently, I had to get rid of two really old Hewlett-Packard laptops and an ancient Palm Vx. I keep hearing stories about how environmentally damaging it is to incinerate laptops or how the less fortunate in third world countries are forced to breathe in toxic fumes while removing bits of precious metal from circuit boards.
I therefore set out to find the best way to find an environmentally friendly means to dispose of old electronics. Personally, I usually give or sell electronics I don’t want, but in the case of my two HP laptops and Palm Vx, these were too old for re-use.
Probably the most common option to recycle electronic appliances is to drop by your neighbour Cash Converter store. The chain of stores allows you to exchange items you no longer use for cash. They take in a huge variety of household products such as TVs, hi-fis, radios, CDs, even musical instruments as well as laptops, computers and printers. If the item is too big or bulky, you can even arrange for a delivery pick-up. They have stores at Toa Payoh, Jurong East, Bedok North, Ang Mo Kio and Admiralty.
Another option would be to call the local karang guni  (rag and bone) man. They can usually be found through The Straits Times or The New Paper classifieds and they usually offer a sum of cash for your old electrical appliances. I’ve used them once or twice before — I once got $50 for an old CRT television. But be careful who you’re dealing with — some of the advertisements look pretty dodgy so make sure you have an agreement in place before they come down to collect the item.
Apart from the two options above, there are a couple more solution providers, not all of them are easy to find. This blog post is a resource of available electronics recycling options found with help from friends, asking around on Twitter and Facebook, and good old searching the web.
National Environment Agency
This is a good starting point, but has limited options. Most of the options featured by NEA tend to be equipment vendors that only take in their own products. Not sure why they won’t be flexible because other vendors such as Dell and HP take in all forms of electronics.
C.CENEX
C.CENEX is actually an IT solutions provider. But they offer a free recycling programme and even purchase old equipment from you if it still works. I find that it’s cool that they have a Twitter account focused on Recycling IT.
Dell Singapore
Dell seems like the easiest to get going. Just pick up the phone and call 1800-394-7419. I assume that will get you to some person who can help.
Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation
This is the only religious/moral foundation I’ve found that does recycling as a service. I think it’s pretty neat. But their website doesn’t give much details about electronics recycling. Maybe giving them a call will give you more info.
Recycling Bank
Their service looks comprehensive, they take in practically everything from monitors to computers, even photocopiers! I can imagine that if you need to like move office and get rid of all the old stuff, these are the folks to go to.
Ricoh Singapore
I’m glad they have a recycling programme, but it’s a pity they only take in certain of their own print cartridges.
HP Singapore
HP used to have a programme that allowed you to drop electronics for recycling off at post offices, but that’s no longer available. Since both our laptops were from HP, I actually thought to check them out, but be careful because their site seems to bring me through a rabbit hole of endless clicks until I reached a solution out of… Australia?
Nokia Singapore
Good effort by Nokia with convenient locations for drop-off. Only down side is that they take in nothing but Nokia products.
Canon Singapore
Got this link via NEA’s website, but it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere useful. According to the info on NEA’s website, Canon has pretty good options for drop-off especially if you’re around the VivoCity or HabourFront area. But like Ricoh, only Canon print cartridges are accepted.
Motorola Singapore
Motorola takes in certain types of electronics that they have direct use for such as mobile phones and two-way radios.
Remember to bookmark this post for future reference and if you’ve got other links to other e-waste solutions, please add them to the comments and help build a resource of this post.
Benjamin Koe is the co-founder of social media monitoring solutions provider, JamiQ. He was formerly a consultant with a global public relations firm, and before that a technology journalist.