Recycling Not Always 100% Safe

Located on Syracuse’s west side, NorthEast Surplus and Materials offers jobs to those locals in need of jobs most. Jim Moltion, founder and owner of the recycling company since 1995 says, “People in this area should be doing things locally because, you know, keep the jobs here, create jobs, maintain jobs.”

In addition to employing people with tough backgrounds, Moltion says unlike many other recycling agencies around the world, he no longer ships electronic waste such as TV’s and computers overseas to be recycled. He admitted to shipping waste to other countries in the past, but he says he has seen the light, in part due to a study conducted with Syracuse University. Burning of materials to extract metals abroad can lead to toxic rain in the U.S. “The prevailing winds across the Pacific Ocean, the west to east, and about five days once they burn something in China, five days later that toxic smoke comes back to us.”

Moltion says this happens too often because most people are unaware of the consequences. He suggests going to the internet to learn the truth, because, “There’s a lot of info on YouTube and Google Video that really shows what’s really happening to our E-Waste in this country and its gotta stop. We’re killing ourselves.”