URBANA — Officials are reminding residents that, if you've been hanging on to that brick of a cellphone or an old computer for no particular reason, now is a good time to get rid of it.

After Jan. 1, 2012, it will be illegal in Illinois to throw a number of electronic devices in the trash that goes to the landfill, and residents and their haulers could be fined if they ignore the new law.

Champaign County officials collected 291 tons of electronics during their countywide collection events in 2010, and the final collection of 2011 will be held Oct. 29. That will be residents' last chance to recycle electronics for free before the ban takes effect.

Residents could, of course, throw away their old electronics for free in advance of the Jan. 1 effective date of the new law, but officials generally warn against that. Electronics contain heavy metals like mercury and lead, which are potentially hazardous to the environment and human health — the very reason for the new law banning the items from landfills.

"It's just logical to reuse this stuff," said Susan Monte, a planner with the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission.

The items that end up at the countywide recycling events are sorted based on their age and condition, Monte said. A newer laptop in good condition, for example, might have its data drives wiped and refurbished. Older, nonworking items will be broken down into their basic components and reused that way.

Champaign County already recycles 2 1/2 times more than the national average, said Courtney Rushforth, recycling coordinator for the city of Urbana. That might be because a university-orientated population pays more attention to environmental issues, she said.

After Jan. 1, there will still be options for people who want to get rid of electronics in between the countywide recycling events, but businesses typically charge customers before they accept electronics.

Residential garbage haulers may be allowed to take electronics, too, so long as it is kept separate from the rest of the trash. Steve Smith of ABC Sanitary Hauling said he has applied for his business to be a registered electronics recycler with the state, but he will be charging a service fee to pick up the items.

"I can't operate at a loss on this stuff," Smith said.

Every item he collects needs to go to a certified electronics recycling business, which will charge him for the items he ships over.

"Televisions and monitors, they are a bear to get rid of," Smith said.

Those are the No. 1 and 2 items that typically end up at the countywide recycling events, Rushforth said.

Smith said he is not happy with the new legislation — his business can be fined $500 if one of his haulers picks up an electronic device mixed with trash at the curbside. A resident might be fined $25.

"They've got the cart before the horse there," Smith said. "It's typical politics."

And he believes landfills are equipped to contain the potentially hazardous materials.

"All of our landfills are certified to take this now," Smith said. "That's why they have to have leachate systems, and they've got groundwater treatment systems and lagoons."

He'll be "communicating" with his customers in December to alert them about the new ban, he said, and government officials are trying to get the word out now.

Rushforth said she thinks it will be particularly difficult to educate the student population.

Around move-out time, "many times you go around campus and see TVs and monitors piled up around Dumpsters," she said.

Smith warns that it might get even more expensive to recycle electronics after the ban goes into effect. If a business charges $15 or $20 now to accept a television when a customer has the option to just throw it away for free, he hypothesized, they might raise that fee when the customer is forced to recycle by law.

What: Countywide residential electronics collection

When: 8 a.m. to noon Saturday

Where: News-Gazette Distribution Center, 3202 Apollo Drive, C. (Apollo Industrial Park, use Olympian Drive).

Free drop-off of:

— Televisions

— Computers, laptops, monitors, keyboards, mice, cables, Zip drives

— Printers & scanners

— VCR/DVD players

— Cell phones

— Fax machines

— MP3 players

— PDAs

— Video game consoles

Limit 10 items per resident.

Snow/ice date: Nov. 5.