The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Plug-In to eCycling partners each collected and safely recycled between 115,000 pounds and 10.5 million pounds of old consumer electronics during their pilot take back efforts in 2004.
Saturday January 8th at the CES, the EPA's Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Tom P. Dunne, will publicly announce the results of these pilots, sponsored by retailers Office Depot, Staples, Good Guys and Best Buy and supported by EPA's Plug-In manufacturer partners. Mr. Dunne also will explain what these efforts mean for increasing consumers' ability to recycle used electronic equipment in the future. In addition, Mr. Dunne will unveil EPA's newest Plug-In to eCycling partner--who will bring consumers unparalleled education on the need to recycle old electronics and provide them with existing opportunities to do so-- and he will recognize current partners' individual contributions to safe electronics recycling in 2004.
EPA's Plug-In to eCycling Partners are: Apple, Best Buy, Cingular (formerly AT&T Wireless), Best Buy, Brother, Dell, Epson, Good Guys, HP, Intel, JVC, Lexmark, Office Depot, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Sharp, Sony, Samsung and Staples.
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Well I am no fan of governmental organizations, however this is a dirty job and someone has to do it. Let's hope that this effort can help to create an infrastructure to make use of our discarded hardware and media. This is so the resources are not wasted and the children of the world (not to mention us grownups!) will not be living among a growing toxic waste caused by high tech products. I have to say kudos this time to the EPA and these named corporate entities that realise the responsibility we all have to the environment. Keep up the good work! We will report here later on the results of this important pilot program.
More information about the Plug-In program and its partners is available at this webpage. I know from what I have read here that the members of CD Freaks are also concerned about our planet and would be happy to make the small commitment to help in this area as long as it is available to them.
Source: EPA
