Results tagged “electronics lifecycle”

Shock and dismay.

iRobot, the company behind the geek- and cat-friendly Roomba family of robotic vacuum cleaners is dispensing some terribly outmoded waste disposal advice. After receiving a non-functioning refurbished Roomba Scooba, iRobot quickly mobilized to send Graham Hill of TreeHugger fame a new one.

+1 for customer service!

But things turned decidedly eco-unfriendly--bordering on eco-hostile--when iRobot instructed him to just toss out the old one and let the garbage men deal with it. ONE MILLION DKP MINUS!!!1!!!

Catch up on the saga over at Treehugger.

As a nation, we love our TVs. So much so that we're keeping nearly 100 million of old, likely CRT-based relics collecting dust. The New York Times reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates 99.1 million televisions sit unused in closets and basements across the country. Consumer response to recycling has been enormous in states where the laws have taken effect. Collection points in Washington State, for example, have been swamped by people like Babs Smith, 55, who recently drove to RE-PC, a designated electronics collection and repurposing center on the southern edge of Seattle.

The good news is that some electronics recycling centers can barely keep up with the influx of old electronics. The bad news, as the Times piece points out, is that local governments, electronics makers, consumers and even inmates are getting caught in a sad patchwork of programs and state regulations that still don't completely address the safe disposal of electronics.

You've probably seen pictures or footage of people in emerging countries, many of them very young, mired in toxic compounds as they scavenge for useful materials from mountains of e-waste that's shipped from the U.S. and other wealthy nations. To help combat this, recycling programs have sprouted up and firms are participating in responsible disposal methods like reuse.

Giving your old PC new life sounds great, right? Gartner's Meike Escherich isn't convinced...

"Although reuse must be considered preferable to most other forms of waste management, without effective controls, exports for reuse can be an excuse for dumping, and, even in the best case, result in 'passing the toxic buck' to emerging economies, which are seldom equipped to deal with this problem in an environmentally and socially responsible way," said Meike Escherich, principal research analyst at Gartner.

The problem is that these refurbished PCs, which are very much in demand in these countries, will eventually fail or become obsolete. When that happens, the landfill-bound equipment ends up leeching toxins in a country or region that's ill-equipped to recycle electronics.

In short, our problem still becomes someone else's.

Source: SiliconRepublic.com

Now 18 states are covered! Heather Clancy of GreenTech Pastures reports:

Dell and Goodwill Industries have expanded the scope of their consumer technology recycling program (called Reconnect) to cover Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

Visit the Reconnect website to find the nearest recycling center near you.

Did you know that Panasonic has a recycling program that lets customers drop off defunct, Panny-branded gear at no charge?

They do, and their program has just expanded to 310 locations by adding 30 more drop-off points in the Southeast, specifically "Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia." According to Yoshi Yamada, Chairman and CEO of Panasonic Corporation of North America, they plan to blanket the U.S. with 800 locations by 2011.

You can check for a Panasonic drop-off point (and other electronic makers, too) in your neck of the woods by visiting MRM's website. After all, that old, busted VCR in the closet isn't doing anyone any favors...

Source: Press Release