A recycling event at Dickinson's Baler Building Friday yielded thousands of pounds of electronics and e-waste.

In partnership with the city, ND E-Waste of Bismarck collects electronics of all sorts, including TVs and printers, computers and laptops, satellite dishes and boxes, old batteries, and cables and wires.

"The majority of this stuff gets broken down into different components," Justin Krom, ND E-Waste co-owner, said. "We take it back to our facility in Bismarck, and then we take those different components and recycle them."

Its first year, the event collected 13 tons of materials, or roughly 26,000 pounds.

The second year yielded less, though deviated about 8 tons, or 16,000 pounds, of e-waste materials from the city landfill.

Previous e-waste recycling events have been over two days. This year's event was held over one day only, as Saturdays were not as well attended.

Recycling electronics helps keep dangerous materials out of the landfill, Krom said.

Old box TVs and light bulbs especially contains hazardous or contaminous components.

Flat-panels and fluorescent bulbs have mercury in them, for example.

"The CRT TVs you can dispose of today, they have lead in the glass, so most landfills will not accept those," he said. "We send these TVs out on trucks to refineries that deal with those in a proper way."

The annual event also helps reduce the volume of waste going into the city landfill, Aaron Praus, Dickinson solid waste manager, told The Dickinson Press in April.

"We're trying to clean up our landfill, what's going out there, and incorporating it in with our current recycling program," Praus said. "We're trying to now expand into different areas in different ways, and bring more recycling to our residents, as they're requesting."

Communities appreciate the opportunity to recycle, Krom said.

"People are happy to have a place to come and get rid of some of this stuff," he said.

The events yield interesting items, Krom said, particularly outdated technology.

"It's fun to see some of the old stuff we get. Old technology, old computers," he said. "We had some old telephone equipment come in, the actual servers from way back when."

The Bismarck-based company first reached out to the city two years ago.

"They wanted to start an e-waste collection day in Dickinson, as we'd never had one prior to that," Praus said. "We committed to it, and allowed them to utilize our facilities."

Electronics recycling could become a regular feature of the city's recycling program, Praus suggested in April.

Praus said he appreciates the community's engagement with the city's burgeoning programs.

"I like seeing our community get involved in different things we bring to them," he said. "It helps to support when we bring in new efforts, and it gives us the sense that there's interest in what we're doing."