Vernon Hills electronics collection attracts a crowd

Spring cleaning was at a fever pitch Saturday in Vernon Hills as hundreds of area residents found their way to the Metra parking lot on Route 45 in Vernon Hills for an electronics collection and paper shredding event.

CRT monitors, laptops, CD/DVD players, cellphones, televisions, printers, computer towers, and small appliances were among the tons of electronics dropped off for recycling during the four-hour event.

Four semi trailers, each capable holding 20,000 pounds of material, were available for the expected large turnout.

Interest is high because the economics of electronics recycling has changed and many collection sites throughout the suburbs have closed. As the value of the materials recovered from those devices has dropped, the amounts paid by equipment manufacturers no longer covers the costs, according to those associated with recycling the products.

In 2014, the Solid Waste Agency of Lake County underwrote the recycling costs for 17 permanent drop-off sites at local public works or other facilities, not including $150,000 in in-kind labor and equipment to operate the programs. The number of permanent collection sites has dropped to five.

Those sites had been scheduled to close May 1, but communities pitched in to keep those sites operating through 2016.

State law bans electronics in landfills.