Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Assistant Director of Ecology, Graciano Gomez Salvador, announces tomorrow's "Jalisco Recycling 2012." The event, which will happen this Saturday, will involve more than 40 municipalities in the state and seeks to collect useless appliances that accumulate in homes, businesses and offices.

This type of waste represents a high risk to health, because these devices contain elements such as lead, mercury, and nickel. When not properly recycled, these items often end up in forests, rivers, lakes, or the ocean and the contaminants then leach into products consumed by the public. The resulting corruption of the environment is associated with health issues like cancer, which is occurring with increasing frequency.

For this reason the Ecology Department is joining the municipal campaign, which seeks to collect as many of these products as possible and transfer them for proper recycling.

The general public is invited to dispose of appliances such as computers, telephones, modems, decoders, cds, media players, appliances, microwave ovens, and blenders that no longer have a useful life.

Televisions will not be accepted in this collection, as the high level of lead in these devices require more careful handling. According to Salvador Gomez, another campaign will be held to collect this type of equipment.

The collection will held on Saturday, February 25th, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, at three different points in the city: the main square in Pitillal, the Public Services offices in the Willows, and at the Agustin Flores Contreras Sports Unit.

There will be additional collections in various cyber-cafes around the city, so those that can't take their equipment to one of the collection points are advised to call for details on where they can take their electronic waste for collection.

For answers to questions about which devices can be recycled, and where, please contact the Ecology Department's mobile offices at (322) 224-8606, 225-0678 or 225-9658.