Plug-in update: 2006 Activities
www.epa.gov/plugin
In 2006, Plug-In To eCycling partners collected
more than 34 million pounds of electronics
through their combined voluntary efforts. The
energy conserved and greenhouse gas emis-
sions prevented through these recycling efforts
is equal to saving enough electricity to power
more than 7,000 homes and taking approxi-
mately 12,000 cars off the road for a year.
Since the program launched in 2003, partners
collaborated to recycle over 95 million pounds.
Notable partner accomplishments for 2006
include:
Best Buy collected approximately 13 million
pounds of CRTs, LCD and plasma TVs, and
monitors from customer homes or through
its services programs. Best Buy sponsored
40 collection events in local communities,
recycling over 1.5 million additional pounds
from 13,000 participants, thus doubling the
number of events it supported in 2005. In
March, Best Buy also assisted in Hurricane
Katrina cleanup efforts by collecting and recy-
cling over 220,000 pounds of damaged elec-
tronics. Since 2001, Best Buy has collected
and recycled over 4,500,000 pounds from
such events—held mainly in store parking
Partner Accomplishments
Plug-In to eCycling is a voluntary partnership
between the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and electronics manufacturers and
retailers aimed at offering consumers more
opportunities to donate or recycle their used
electronics. Partners design and implement
various approaches—either national or re-
gional in scope—to give individuals eCycling
options. Partners might offer online takeback
or trade-in programs, create partnerships with
local organizations to facilitate collections,
host collection events at retail locations, and
support local recycling events with cities and
municipalities.
lots—and an additional 90,000 pounds of
cell phones, InkJet cartridges, and recharge-
able batteries from recycling fixtures located
in the entryways of each Best Buy store.
Cingular Wireless collected almost 4.5 mil-
lion phones—recycling more than 470,000
pounds of phones, accessories, and batter-
ies through its recycler, Hobi International.1
In addition, the company refurbished more
than 4 million phones for resale through an
authorized agent. In June 2006, Cingular
launched its Reuse & Recycle Policy, requir-
ing all 2,000 company-owned retail stores to
participate in its mobile phone, PDA, battery,
and accessory recycling program. Cingular's
customer service Web portal now includes a
store locator for consumers to search by city
and ZIP Code for the closest Cingular store at
which to recycle their used phones.
Dell recycled over 4.2 million pounds of
electronics through innovative partnerships
and collection events. Dell's program with
Goodwill Industries—the Reconnect Alli-
ance—collected more than 4 million pounds
of equipment for reuse or recycling in five
states. Through its partnership with the
National Cristina Foundation, Dell offers
consumers opportunities to donate comput-
ers. In September 2006, Dell introduced free
online recycling, providing consumers with
opportunities to recycle used Dell comput-
ers by downloading a shipping label from the
company's Web site. In addition to these ini-
tiatives, Dell also hosted local events in Ten-
nessee, Ohio, and Oklahoma, collecting more
than 200,000 pounds of used electronics.
By 2009, Dell aims to recover 275 million
pounds of equipment from customers.
eBay's Rethink initiative educates consum-
ers on why eCycling is important and provides
them with information and options for donat-
ing or recycling electronics. In 2006, Rethink
1 Cingular, with its recycling partner HOBI International, Inc., promotes complete demanufacturing of cellular
phones as a recycling service—instead of smelting the phone—to increase the resource recovery potential from
the recycling process. Whereas most smelting processes recover less than 0.5 percent of valuable resources,
de-manufacturing often generates recovery rates in excess of 80 percent
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generated 785,000 Web hits, educating more
than 229,000 unique visitors on eCycling.
Rethink members include Plug-In To eCycling
partners Best Buy, HP, Dell, Intel, Toshiba,
and Apple.
HP recycled more than 164 million pounds
of electronics hardware and printing supplies
globally in 2006, including approximately
64 million pounds from initiatives in North,
Central, and South America. This represents
an increase of 17 percent from 2005, and the
company expects to meet its goal to recycle 1
billion pounds of hardware and print cartridg-
es globally by the end of 2007. HP supports
a number of ongoing collection opportunities
for consumers including online recycling for
computers and monitors. Through its buy-
back, leasing, and trade-in programs, HP col-
lected approximately 50 million pounds (more
than 2.5 million computer units) for reuse.
During the summer and fall 2006, it launched
a Recycling Tour, holding 11 local collection
events in Colorado, New Mexico, Connecticut,
Oregon, Illinois, Maryland, California, and
Minnesota. These localized recycling events
reached more than 4,000 individuals and
diverted more than 600,000 pounds of elec-
tronics from entering landfills. HP also devel-
oped and distributed "Get In The Technology
Loop!" curricula through its partnership with
Scholastic—the global children's publishing,
education, and media company—to raise
student awareness of environmental issues
related to technology. HP expects these mate-
rials to reach 12 million students.
Intel sponsored and cosponsored 27 collec-
tion events in 10 states, recycling more than
1.5 million pounds of electronics, a 25 per-
cent increase from 2005. A strong advocate
of reuse, Intel supports Students Recycling
Used Technology (StRUT) and is a leading
member of eBay's Rethink initiative.
Lexmark recycled approximately 5.5 million
pounds of electronics through its Equipment
Collection Program and from equipment re-
turned from customers.
NEC Display Solutions recycled more than
1 million pounds of electronics in the United
States and more than 3.5 million pounds
globally. NEC recycled more than 450,000
pounds of NEC-branded products through
ongoing collection efforts and approximately
600,000 pounds of equipment through Total
Trade, its trade-in program targeting corpora-
tions. In February 2006, NEC Display Solu-
tions formed an alliance with Computers For
Schools, through which NEC Display Solutions
donated more than 450 computer displays.
Office Depot collected more than 60,000
pounds of electronics during its three-month
in-store collection and mail-back pilot, where
customers paid for recycling electronics at retail
locations. Office Depot also collected more
than 6,500 ink and laser cartridges for recycling
through its ongoing in-store take-back program.
Panasonic co-sponsored 194 events in
29 states, recycling more than 4.2 million
pounds of electronics. Sharp, Sony, JVC,
Philips, and Toshiba supported many of
the same events across the country, which
collected and recycled more than 500,000
pounds of electronics. Sony recycled more
than 36,000 pounds of its own branded prod-
ucts through participation in these voluntary
collection events.2 Sony also offers consum-
ers coupons or store credit for trading in old
notebook PCs through its online Notebook
Trade-In Program. Toshiba's Trade-In program,
where consumers receive credit toward a new
purchase for trading in used products, also
includes options for recycling if the product is
considered obsolete. In addition to support-
ing domestic recycling, Toshiba recycled more
than 25 million pounds of TVs and 468,000
pounds of computers globally.
Staples collected more than 1.6 million
pounds of electronics in 93 of its stores in
15 states. Collection events ranging from
one day to two weeks were held in Arizona,
California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Ken-
tucky, Massachusetts, Montana, North Caro-
lina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Oregon, and Washington. Fourteen stores
in the Seattle area currently offer ongoing
fee-based collection for consumers through-
out the year since they belong to the Pacific
Northwest's Take It Back Network, a group
of retailers, repair vendors, recyclers, and
nonprofit groups that provide electronics col-
lection and recycling services.
2 In addition, Sony estimates that approximately 5.6 million pounds of Sony-branded products were recycled in
California and over 200,000 pounds of Sony-branded products were recycled in Maine.
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Dell Expands Reconnect Partner-
ship with Goodwill industries
Dell partnered with Goodwill Industries to cre-
ate the Reconnect Alliance, an innovative and
sustainable program that enables consumers
to conveniently donate or recycled unwanted
electronics. Consumers can bring their used
electronics to a participating Goodwill store
or donation drop-off site in five states at no
cost for resale or recycling. Proceeds from
resale value of donations are returned to
Goodwill Industries to support its mission of
creating job opportunities for individuals with
barriers to employment. Through this pro-
gram, individuals gain valuable, transferable
job skills in dismantling or refurbishing com-
puters. In cases where electronics are not
resold, Dell assists in recycling them. Prior
to this year, Reconnect launched in Central
Texas, San Francisco, and the state of Michi-
gan. In 2006, Dell and Goodwill expanded the
Reconnect Alliance to San Diego, Pittsburgh,
23 counties in South Texas and 49 of 100
counties in North Carolina. All Reconnect pro-
grams, now locally available to an estimated
10 million U.S. households, collected over
4 million pounds of electronics in 2006. For
more information, go to:
Dismantling computers at the Austin Goodwill
Testing eCycling in Rural
Communities
Consumers living near more urban and heav-
ily populated regions in the United States
often have more access to local eCycling
opportunities than do those living in rural ar-
eas. High transportation costs due to a lack
of nearby electronics recycling infrastructure
can impede ongoing eCycling programs from
taking root in rural communities.
In 2006, Montana's Department of Environ-
mental Quality (DEQ) piloted its Rural Elec-
tronic Waste Recycling Program to provide the
first series of electronics recycling opportuni-
ties to residents in communities throughout
the state. These collection events recycled
more than 330,000 pounds of electronics.
Plug-In partners Staples, JVC, Lexmark,
Panasonic, Phillips, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba,
and Best Buy co-
sponsored events
in Helena, Mis-
soula, and Butte
and paid for the
cost of recycling
their brands.
Results from this
pilot project are
helping Montana
develop a volun-
tary electronics
recycling program
for the state.
Moreover, Plug-In partners JVC, Lexmark,
Panasonic, Philips, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba
supported collection events across West Vir-
ginia by paying for the recycling costs of their
branded products. The events, organized by
the National Center for Electronics Recycling
through a grant from the West Virginia High
Technology Consortium Foundation, collected
and recycled more than 230,000 pounds of
electronics. For more information, go to:
Testing Fee-Based Recycling
In October 2006, Plug-In partners Panasonic,
Sharp, Toshiba, JVC, Philips, and Samsung
provided financial support for a series of
eCycling events in eight communities in Min-
nesota, administered by Waste Management.
These events tested fee-based recycling,
where consumers paid $10-25 to recycle
obsolete monitors and televisions; nearly
45,000 pounds were collected. Plug-In part-
ners are planning more events for the spring
of 2007 at additional sites throughout the
state.
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Pass it On!
Reuse benefits communities by giving others
access to technology through donations and
resale, and it conserves significant energy
and resources otherwise used to manufac-
ture new products.
In 2006, EPA and its multi-stakeholder Plug-In
To eCycling Reuse Working Group developed
Do the PC Thing, a how-to fact sheet for con-
sumers and businesses that addresses data
security and sanitization, selecting donation
recipients, and additional instructions for
preparing one's computer for reuse. Do the
PCThing is available for download at: .
Pass it On week
EPA and its Plug-In partners launched Pass It
On Week, held April 16-23, 2006, to com-
memorate Earth Day, encouraging computer
reuse and recycling in communities across
the United States. As a result:
• Intel-sponsored events in Arizona, Colo-
rado, Massachusetts, and New Jersey
collected more than 420,000 pounds of
electronics.
• Dell's Reconnect program collected more
than 80,000 pounds of electronics in
Michigan, Texas and California.
• HP recycled approximately 75,000 pounds
from events for employees.
• Staples collected approximately 200,000
pounds from events held in Chicago.
• Best Buy and Toshiba teamed up to collect
more than 50,000 pounds from two collec-
tion events at Best Buy stores in Southern
California.
Plug-ln's Reuse Working Group also devel-
oped 100 Percent Day, an initiative within
Pass It On Week, to track collections on Earth
Day. Through this effort, more than 60,000
PCs were collected.
The mention of any company or product neither
constitutes nor implies endorsement by the
Environmental Protection Agency
January 2007
EPA530-F-07-009
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