Key Facts About ‘Green’ Appliance and E-waste Junk Removal in Oakland

Household appliances can be a real head-scratcher for millions of homeowners around California. Every week we get questions about whether appliances like refrigerators, stoves, washers, and dryers can be recycled or, if not, what’s the best thing to do with them? 

Every year, about nine million refrigerators get thrown out in the United States alone. On a worldwide scale, a BBC report finds that old and broken down kitchen, bathroom and laundry appliances account for over 60 percent of the 41.8 million tons of electronic waste (e-waste) thrown away in 2014.

Obviously, in a nation where our landfills are already overburdened with excessive amounts of municipal solid waste (MSW) and construction and demolition (C&D) debris, bulky junk items like old fridges and washing machines obviously put even more stress on our waste management systems. 

However, your old microwaves, washing machines, dishwashers and other household appliances might also be contributing to one of the most serious toxic waste problems in the country. Consider the following statistics related to electronic waste in the United States: 

• The United States dumps between 300 million and 400 million electronic items per year. 
• Less than 20 percent of appliances and electronics are recycled, meaning that they are either landfilled or incinerated.
• E-waste represents just two percent of the total amount of trash we send to landfills, but it equals about 70 percent of overall toxic waste. 

Your used electronics and appliances will most likely contain several toxic chemicals including heavy metals, fire retardants, volatile organic chemicals, refrigerants driving global warming, and more.

All of these chemicals, when improperly disposed of, run the risk of contaminating local ecosystems. Toxic chemicals can infiltrate ground water aquifers and poison soils. Left over refrigerants in refrigerators, heat pumps, and air conditioners are a serious source of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Perhaps even more illogical is the fact that the vast majority of used appliances can easily be donated, recycled, or otherwise repurposed in order to keep them out of the local landfill. Many types of electronic waste have high amounts of precious metals that command high prices on the recycle market.

For example, one recycling specialist reports that “cellphones contain about two cents’ worth of gold…an old cathode ray computer monitor contains a nickel’s worth of gold…(and) a ton of electronics scrap should contain about 12 ounces of gold.” 

For people who live in Alameda, Oakland, and the surrounding areas, there are fortunately several recycling businesses, donation centers, thrift stores, and other similar organizations that can help you get rid of your used appliances in an environmentally friendly way. 

If you don’t have a heavy duty pickup truck or a strong enough back to haul your bulky used and broken down appliances to one of these recycling or donation centers, however, Junk King of Alameda is here to help you. Below, we quickly outline how we can help you get rid of three of the most common used appliances. 

What’s the Deal with Household Appliances? 

The fact is that these appliances can be bulky and difficult to get out of your home in the first place. Junk King is a full-service junk removal company that can help with that.

Junk King is a convenient option for junk removal in Oakland because you can call 1-888-888-5865 (JUNK) or book online to save $20 on appliance removal orders more than $99. 

Junk King takes the following household appliances and as North America’s ‘greenest’ junk removal company we do our best to recycle, reuse, and repurpose 60 percent or more of every junk haul. 

• – Air Conditioners
• – Dishwashers
• – Dryers
• – Garbage Disposals
• – Heaters
• – Lawnmowers
• – Microwaves
• – Mini-Fridges
• – Ovens/Wall Ovens
• – Refrigerators/Freezers
• – Stoves/Ranges/Cooktops
• – Trash Compactors
• – Vacuums
• – Water Heaters
• – Washing Machines/Dryers

More needs to be done in terms of recycling the appliances listed above, all of which Junk King takes as part of its full-service junk removal in Oakland. The Environmental Protection Agency says that 2.2 million tons of small appliance waste are generated annually, of which only a minuscule 5.6 percent was recycled.

Junk King is here to help get that number up significantly! 

Even though the 5.6 percent number is slightly discouraging, about 18 percent of these small appliances were combusted for energy recovery, whereas about 75 percent was ultimately put into landfills. The main kinds of recycled appliances are said to be: air conditioners, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, and computers. Fortunately, Junk King takes electronic (e-waste) appliances, as well. 

Air Conditioners 

Air conditioners are bulky appliances that can stop working after about 10 years without routine maintenance.

Although these can be some of the heaviest appliances in your home, they can pose problems for the environment if left to pollute landfills and, in turn, local groundwater and soil. 

Your typical room air conditioner contains many harmful materials that need to be removed before recycling can get underway. Room air conditioners, for instance, contain refrigerants that the EPA considers harmful to the ozone layer. Air conditioners also contain oils and other compounds that federal law mandates need to be removed and recovered before recycling. 

Any harmful materials in your old air conditioner will be sent to a hazardous waste collection center before the metal components are processed for recycling. Typically, the metal, including steel and aluminum, is the most coveted part of an air conditioner in terms of recycling.

Tanks, pipes, hoses, and the frame of your air conditioner can usually be recycled once harmful materials are removed and sent to a hazardous waste collection center. 

How We Can Help You Get Rid of your Used Air Conditioner 

Despite our relatively mild summers, data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey found that just over 47 percent of the San Francisco metro area’s 1.7 million households had air conditioning in 2019. When those air conditioners eventually break down, they also need special care to ensure that leftover refrigerant is not accidentally released into the atmosphere. 

When you hire Junk King of Alameda for air conditioner disposal, we ensure that your old AC unit will be taken to the best certified recyclers, if they cannot be donated or otherwise repaired. We are the leading junk removal company for individuals and business owners in the Bay area.

Besides providing appliance recycling services, we also offer full junk removal services to several communities around the Oakland and Alameda areas, including residential and commercial service to people in Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Castro Valley, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Emeryville, Fremont, Hayward, Hercules, Newark, Oakland, Pinole, Richmond, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, San Pablo, and Sunol. 

Our junk removal team has developed solid, long-standing relationships with several donation and recycling centers, including Goodwill, the Salvation Army, local homeless shelters, Habitat for Humanity and others.

This allows us to ensure that all of the electronics and used appliances that we haul away for you are either donated or recycled. In short, when you hire Junk King of Alameda for your electronics and appliance removal needs, you can rest assured that none of those e-waste items will end up in local landfills.

Refrigerators 

Refrigerators and freezers contain a host of materials that can be recycled and put to a second use. These appliances contain metals like aluminum, steel, and copper in addition to recyclable plastics and glass. 

The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that just shy of 10 million refrigerators/freezers are sent to the landfill every year. That’s about 100 million every decade, which is nothing to scoff at! 

Older refrigerators contain a harmful chemical known as PCB, which has been phased out of refrigerators made after around 1990. The halocarbons in refrigerators are also said to contribute to the greenhouse effect, so finding a way to recycle is essential. 

Cooling appliances like air conditioners and refrigerators/freezers can contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), and perhaps even greenhouse gases (GHGs).

Many of these substances can have a greenhouse warming potential impact that is hundreds or thousands of times more harmful to the ozone layer than regular carbon dioxide (CO2). Refrigerators can contain harmful gases like CFC-12, HCFC-22, and HFC-132-a (all flagged by EPA). 

How We Deal with Old and Broken Down Refrigerators 

When illegally dumped or sent to the landfill, the refrigerants, or the chemicals that do the job of cooling the air inside a fridge or freezer, will eventually escape to the atmosphere. In older models of refrigerators, especially those built before 1995, CFCs were the main type of refrigerant.

These types of refrigerants are ozone-depleting substances and a powerful greenhouse gas. Furthermore, the insulating foam is also usually made from CFCs and HFCs. When shredded, these foams also release enormous amounts of harmful gasses into the atmosphere.

When you hire Junk King of Alameda for your old refrigerator disposal, we first will make every effort to donate used refrigerators in workable condition to thrift stores or other types of donation centers. We know that there are several families and businesses in the Alameda region that could benefit from a low-priced used refrigerator.

For fridges that are broken down beyond repair, we work with certified recycling centers to ensure that the refrigerator is disposed of in an environmentally responsible way. 

We ensure that all of the refrigerants are collected and returned to EPA-approved disposal sites. Furthermore, our recycling partners also go the extra mile to ensure that components such as oil, mercury and PCBs must also be handled according to EPA specifications. 

How We Can Help You Deal with Used Washing Machines 

A large washing machine will probably weigh somewhere between 200 and 250 pounds. When you hire Junk King of Alameda to help you get rid of a used washing machine, our junk removal professionals will do all of the heavy lifting for you.

Simply let us know where the item is located in your home, and we´ll make sure it gets out of your home or business without denting the walls or ruining your new interior paint job. 

Though washing machines may not have refrigerants, they do have an enormous amount of metals and some precious metals in the motor.

If your washing machine cannot be salvaged by a thrift store or repair shop, we work with local recycling centers and scrap metal recyclers to ensure that the vast majority of the components in your old washing machine are recycled instead of simply landfilled. 

Besides helping you safely and efficiently get rid of your used appliances, we can also haul away used furniture, hot tubs, construction debris, used appliances, yard waste, and virtually anything else that is not classified as toxic waste. 

For online and text price estimates, we also make every effort to give you a response in 10 minutes or less. Fair and transparent pricing, quality customer service, and a sincere commitment to recycling or reusing at least 60 percent of the junk we pick up are just a few of the reasons that Junk King is Oakland and Alameda´s number one preferred junk removal service. 

Simply call us at 1-888-5865(JUNK) or consider booking us online here. Again, we offer up-front pricing that will leave you feeling like the weight of your clutter has been lifted off your shoulders. Call us today to help get rid of your used and broken appliances in the most efficient way possible! 

What About Electronic Waste (E-waste) Junk Removal? 

If about 5 percent of household appliances like air conditioners and refrigerators are disposed of every year in the United States, surely e-waste must be doing better. 

In fact, it is. About 12 percent of e-waste gets recycled, which is fortunate because e-waste contains harmful metals like lead, cadmium, and mercury in addition to reusable or precious metals like copper, silver, gold, and palladium. 

Every one million cell phones that are recovered and recycled contribute to salvaging approximately 35,000 pounds of copper, 775 pounds of silver, and 75 pounds of gold. Considering that gold is about $22,000/pound, that comes to about $1.6 million considering $22,000 X 75 ~ $1.6 million. That saves a lot of money and mining! 

Electronic waste is said to be the world’s fastest-grower trash source and approximately 70 percent of toxic waste production globally. Considering that the average American has more than ten wired appliances sitting around their home, the more recycling with junk removal in Oakland, the better. 

Globally, more than 50 million tons of electronic waste was produced last year, and about 17 percent of that was recycled around the world. The biggest culprits come from sources you might not expect, particularly small equipment like vacuum cleaners and cameras. 

Vacuum cleaners and cameras contributed to about 17 million of the 54 million tons of e-waste generated in 2019. This is substantially more than monitors and screens for the same year. At present, about three-fourths of the world is covered by some kind of e-waste recycling program. 

Junk King is North America’s ‘Greenest’ Junk Removal Company 

The numbers indicate that, at a steady increase of about 2 million tons of e-waste every year, the amount of e-waste should be around 75 million tons annually by 2030. Junk King is here to make sure more appliance and e-waste gets recycled. For junk removal in Oakland, contact Junk King today! At Junk King, we strive to recycle 60 percent more of every residential and commercial junk haul!