Industry Touts E-Waste Progress For America Recycles Day
CEA and electronics makers touted industry efforts at boosting e-waste recycling on America Recycles Day Wednesday even as they called for more consumer education initiatives. CEA research shows that “58 percent of consumers know where to take their end-of-life electronics, we would very much like to see that level of awareness increase,” said Walter Alcorn, CEA vice president-environmental affairs. EPA officials toured e-waste recycling facilities to stress the importance of responsible recycling of used electronics.
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CE makers and retailers operate more than 5,000 recycling locations in the U.S. and have “vowed to recycle one billion pounds annually by 2016,” under the voluntary industry-led e-Cycle Leadership initiative unveiled in April, CEA said. That’s a “sharp increase from the 300 million pounds recycled in 2010, it said. CEA plans to start collecting data next year on manufacturers’ and retailers’ collection activities under the initiative, Alcorn told us. The figures are expected to be released in April, he said.
LG Electronics collected 10 million pounds of discarded electronics this year for “responsible recycling,” the company said. LG’s recycling program provides consumers with a “convenient and responsible way to dispose of used, unwanted, obsolete or damaged” electronics, said LG North America CEO Wayne Park. LG has been encouraging consumers to upgrade to Energy Star products after recycling their old electronics, he said.
Sprint’s Buy Back program has “kept more than 26 million phones out of landfills,” the company said. The EPA estimates that 135 million cellphones, weighing 17,200 tons, are discarded nationwide each year, it said. Only about 10 percent of them are collected for reuse or recycling, it said. “Sprint is the only wireless carrier to outline specific commitments that address e-waste holistically by focusing on the full life cycle of the electronics it buys and sells,” the company said. As part of its Electronics Stewardship Policy, Sprint has committed to design and procure “eco-friendly electronics” and to “maximize the equipment’s useful life, boost collection of equipment and strive to maximize reuse of electronics,” it said.
EPA and General Services Administration officials highlighted the benefits of electronics recycling during tours of recycling facilities in Chicago and Dallas. “Instead of creating pollution, our used electronics can be supporting local jobs through eCycling,” said Margaret Guerriero, director of EPA’s Region 5 Land and Chemicals Division. “It’s essential that used electronics are taken care of in the right way."
"The U.S. government is among the country’s largest consumers of technology and it seeks to be the most responsible user,” said Ann Kalayil, GSA Great Lakes regional administrator. “When these products have outlived their productivity, it is essential that we encourage the responsible disposal of electronics that will help create a more sustainable future and promote job growth in the recycling industry."
Recycling electronics helps reduce the environmental impact that would be generated while manufacturing a new product and the need to extract valuable and limited virgin resources from the earth, the agencies said. It also reduces the energy used in new product manufacturing, they said. The EPA estimates that recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 U.S. homes for a year.