JUST HOW MUCH TECH-JUNK IS GETTING RECYCLED ?

[Anonymous]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17912_3-10229886-72.html
Just how much tech junk is getting recycled?
Last
year, Office Depot recycled almost 1.5 million pounds of old tech
equipment through its service for consumers, the company said
Wednesday.That sounds like a lot. It makes you realize how quickly all
those landfills must be filling up since that figure represents only
the junk from people who 1) actually bother to recycle, and 2) chose to
go with Office Depot’s recycling program.For a comparison, I decided to
check how other company-sponsored recycling programs are doing.
Unfortunately, as sustainability expert Kevin Wilhelm told CNET, there
is yet to be a standard way for companies to calculate such statistics.
What’s included in recycling statistics varies from company to company,
but the data I dug up offers a rough idea of what’s going on in this
arena.Staples, an Office Depot competitor, began offering an in-store
recycling service in May 2007. It charges $10 per large item regardless
of where you originally bought it; recycles small items like keyboards,
mice, and speakers for free; and offers $3 in Staples rewards for
Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark or Dell brand printer cartridges.By the end of
the 2007, Staples had recycled 2 million pounds of tech junk, including
almost 24 million printer cartridges in the U.S., according to the
company’s 2007 sustainability report.

What about the computer manufacturers themselves?
Hewlett-Packard
has had a recycling program since 1987 and in January 2009 launched a
new program that offers money for old tech equipment. As of June 2007,
the company had recycled more than 1 billion pounds of electronics and
printer cartridges and expanded to include consumer programs in 50
countries. HP’s new goal is to reach 2 billion pounds by the end of
2010.Unlike Office Depot, which asks customers for pay $5, $10, or $15
for a box they can fill with everything from printers to digital
cameras, HP offers credit that can be put toward the purchase of an HP
product.

Apple has consumer recycling programs in 95 percent of
the countries where it sells its computers. In 2007, it collected about
“21 million pounds of e-waste,” according to the company’s 2008
environmental report.

Dell offers consumer recycling programs
worldwide. In the U.S., it’s free. Between 2006 and 2008, Dell recycled
about 255 million pounds of its own products. Its goal is to recover
about 275 million pounds by the end of 2009, according to its 2008
Global Corporate Responsibility Report.

Big Blue seems to have recycled the most, or at least calculated the most.
Between
1995 (when it began keeping track) and the end of 2007, IBM “collected
and recovered (resold, refurbished, or recycled)” more than 1.5 billion
pounds of product and product waste worldwide, according to the
company’s latest corporate sustainability report.

In the U.S., IBM offers consumer recycling programs on a state-by-state basis.
While
recycling tech equipment is definitely a positive way to do your part
for the environment, it’s also important to keep your computer
information secure. Always remember to properly wipe computers clean of
your personal information before giving away or recycling them.
Coincidentally, CNET’s Seth Rosenblatt did a piece on wiping hard
drives clean earlier this week.

[Author]

May 19, 2009 at 12:38 PM