Computer Recycling in Redwood Shores

Redwood Shores is a master-planned waterfront neighborhood within Redwood City, located in San Mateo County along the western shore of San Francisco Bay. 

With a population of approximately 12,800 people, it is one of the more densely settled communities in its area, defined by 19 miles of navigable lagoons weaving through the neighborhood, bayfront access to the San Francisco Bay Trail, and a built environment that combines upscale residential housing with some of Silicon Valley’s most recognizable corporate campuses.

The community was developed in the 1960s on reclaimed Bay marshland — the same low-lying geography that now gives Redwood Shores a particular relationship with the environmental challenges of the coming decades. Redwood Shores sits at roughly seven feet above sea level. It is surrounded by levees. The Bair Island wetlands directly across Steinberger Slough from Redwood Shores are among the largest remaining restorable tidal wetlands in the South San Francisco Bay. The health of this geography — its sloughs, salt marshes, and shoreline ecosystems — is not an abstraction for Redwood Shores residents. It is the literal ground they live on.

That relationship with the Bay shapes what environmental responsibility looks like here. Electronics do not belong in it — not in the soil, not in the groundwater, not in the waste stream that drains toward it.

In San Mateo County, it is already illegal to throw away most electronics. Under county ordinance, any device powered by electricity that contains circuitry and is identified by the State of California as hazardous or universal waste must be responsibly recycled — not placed in the trash. This includes televisions, computers, monitors, tablets, phones, kitchen appliances, electronic toys, and more. Improper disposal of electronics can pollute air, soil, and groundwater, and contaminate the broader waste stream. Recology San Mateo County specifically directs residents to GreenCitizen as an electronics reuse and recycling option.

At the state level, California’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 establishes additional obligations for covered electronics, requiring that displays, computers, and televisions be managed through certified recycling channels.

The climate governance context runs through Redwood City’s 2030 Climate Action Plan, adopted November 2020. The plan commits to reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, as an interim milestone toward carbon neutrality well before 2045. The CAP covers energy and buildings, transportation and mobility, waste and consumption, water resources, and resilience and adaptation. Its Waste and Consumption section explicitly frames the goal as moving beyond linear consumption — take, make, waste — toward a circular model in which materials are reduced, reused, recycled, and recovered rather than landfilled.

For a community built on reclaimed Bay margins, surrounded by sloughs and salt marshes, that framing is not theoretical. Electronics that escape proper recycling channels are a direct threat to the kind of environment Redwood Shores residents wake up to every morning.