Electronics Companies Step Up their Recycling Efforts

April 16, 2009

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Electronics manufacturers and retailers are stepping up their recycling efforts with additional drop-off or trade-in locations.

Panasonic Corporation of North America’s expanded its Nationwide Recycling Program, with 30 additional drop-off sites in the Southeastern United States including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The expansion brings the current number of drop-off locations to 310 nationwide.

This also means that Sharp and Toshiba will be able to use the recycling sites as part of their relationship with Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company LLC (MRM), a joint venture established in 2007 by Panasonic, Sharp Electronics Corporation and Toshiba America Consumer Products, LLC, and Creative Recycling Systems, Inc. (CRS) which operates collection facilities in the Southeast and Midwest regions of the United States. Day-to-day management of the Panasonic’s Recycling Program is contracted to MRM.

The consumer and digital electronics giant plans to add more locations in the Southeast throughout the Spring. The goal: 400 drop-off locations by December 2009 and more than 800 by 2011. Included as drop-off sites in the program are Panasonic’s North American headquarters in Secaucus, N.J. as well as their corporate facilities in Chesapeake, Va. and Rolling Meadows, Ill.

Other electronics manufacturers making strides in recycling include Hewlett-Packard, which increased its recycling volume six percent to 265 million pounds globally, and Dell, which recently added six states to its recycling program with Goodwill Industries.

Consumer electronics retailers also offer consumers an environmentally friendly way to recycle their electronics. Radio Shack Corp., for example, has expanded its trade-in program to about 4,400 company-operated stores nationwide. The program allows customers to recycle select used products in exchange for a Radio Shack gift card.

Eligible products for trade-in at the store level include MP3 players, wireless phones, gaming systems and games, GPS receivers, digital cameras and digital camcorders. Acceptable items for RadioShack’s online trade-in program also include car audio head units, notebook computers, HDTVs and computer monitors.

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Reader Comments

Batteries Plus is also a great resource. They take all kinds of batteries for recycling.

Felicia | April 17th, 2009

While the article focuses on electronics vendors, it is worth noting that there are several companies that can assist businesses with their decommissioned IT gear. Services can include data destruction, on-site asset identification and reporting, packing and wrapping services, remarketing, and recycling services.

Make sure that the company you work with is recycling the electronics responsibly. Ask if they are a Basel Action Network member and if they check their downstream service providers as well.

Brian Wahoff | April 20th, 2009