Abstract:
The exponential growth of the consumer electronic market in recent decades has, unsurprisingly,
resulted in an unprecedented amount of electronic waste. Electronic waste can be particularly
troublesome as it does not easily decompose and often contains hazardous materials. Given these
circumstances, in 2011 the state of Indiana enacted a law which prohibits the discarding of most
electronic devices by Indiana households. This law is rarely enforced however, and while the
state of Indiana does offer a spreadsheet of locations where electronics can be recycled, it is not
particularly user friendly or comprehensive. To assist Hoosiers in recycling their old electronics,
I added nearly 150 additional locations to the Indiana database of electronic recycling facilities,
appended relevant information to the locations already included in the database, mapped the
locations on a digital map of Indiana, and included a query function which allows Hoosiers to
find the right facility for their needs. While creating this map, I found that an alarming number of
locations either do not recycle televisions or charge a fee to do so and that roughly 215,000
Indiana households are further than 30 minutes away from an electronic recycling center. From
my analysis, I recommend that the state of Indiana subsidize the recycling of televisions and
batteries as well as encourage the development of more electronic recycling facilities in the rural
parts of Indiana.
