TEXT OF STORY

SCOTT JAGOW: We talked about the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. These days all those new gizmos get old pretty quick, so our garbage dumps are filling up with this stuff. Amy Scott tells us about an alternative.

AMY SCOTT: On Sunday, New Yorkers schlepped their old TV sets, monitors and cell phones to a Manhattan park. Eventually the junk will be fed to a machine like this.

Imagine a two-story paper shredder that spits out reusable plastic, glass, and scrap metal. The Lower East Side Ecology Center hosts this post-holiday recycling event every year.

Christina Datz-Romero is executive director.

CHRISTINA DATZ-ROMERO: There’s up to four pounds of lead in an average TV. There’s also mercury, beryllium, flame retardant.

She says recycling keeps those chemicals out of the soil and water supply. It also gets that 10-year-old monitor out of your garage.

In New York, I’m Amy Scott for Marketplace.