CHAMPAIGN — The second of four countywide residential electronics collections this year will be held Saturday at The News-Gazette Distribution Center in north Champaign.

The collection will take place from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday in the lot at the newspaper's distribution center at 3202 Apollo Drive, C. Motorists are asked to enter the facility by way of East Olympian Drive off of North Market Street. There will be signs along the route to direct people to the distribution center.

Teams of about 70 community service volunteers will be at the facility to help unload electronics items from vehicles. As many as 10 items per vehicle can be collected; there is no charge to drop off the items.

Electronics that can be accepted include televisions (of any size, including consoles and projections TVs), computers, laptops, computer monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards and mice, mobile phones, cables, fax machines, VCR players, DVD players, MP3 players, PDAs, video game consoles, microwaves and speakers.

Among the items not accepted are appliances and anything containing Freon. This is the second of four countywide electronics collections this year. They are supported by local governments, The News-Gazette and other local businesses, and Vintage Tech Recyclers of Romeoville.

At the last event on March 5, 56.5 tons of electronics was collected, including 23.3 tons of televisions and 11.8 tons of monitors. Last year at four similar events, Champaign County residents brought in 291 tons of electronics items.

The two remaining collection drives this year are scheduled for Aug. 6 and Oct. 29, according to Susan Monte, Champaign County recycling coordinator.

The remaining collections are important, Monte said, because after Jan. 1, 2012, televisions, monitors, computers and printers will be banned from Illinois landfills. Many electronics products contain lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and other materials that pose environmental and health risks.

But none of the electronics waste collected at the Champaign County drives ends up in landfills, Monte said.

"Vintage Tech Recyclers follows all of the strict guidelines set up by the state," she said. "They break everything down into what is a marketable commodity, or they refurbish it if possible. None of the items gets landfilled. There's no part of anything that gets shipped overseas so that it doesn't end up in a landfill over there."

For more information about the collection, call the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission at 328-3313.