You're a good recycler — recycling paper, bottles, cans and plastic — but old TV's, computers and cell phones drive you nuts because the recycling truck won't take them. All that electronic scrap (with components that nobody wants to see leach into drinking water) ends up in a hole in the ground — ugh! What's a good recycler like you to do?

Well, if you're in Ontario after April 1, 2009, your worries are over. That's when the province's recycling drop-offs will start receiving electronics. The program is free for consumers, with the tab picked up by manufacturers, brand owners and importers. The goal is to have 650 locations up and running in five years.

Ontario currently recycles 27 percent of its electronics, but it hopes to move that number up to 61 percent at the five-year mark — that's the first target set for recycling electronic scrap anywhere in Canada. Ontario's environment minister says the wholesale dumping of electronics into landfills has "got to end."

And good recyclers everywhere nod in agreement.

Questions can be sent to Jim Parks at jrparks@mac.com. To find out more about Jim Parks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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