Best Buy Recycling Event Nabs 37K Pounds of Electronics

by | Jul 31, 2013

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tech it awayBest Buy Canada’s fifth year of Tech It Away Recycling events collected 37,000 pounds of electronics from Canadian homes for responsible recycling. This year’s events took place at six Best Buy stores in Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Quebec City; the company encouraged people to participate by offering everyone who dropped off electronics the chance to win a $500 Best Buy gift card.

Winnipeg stores collected the most products at more than 23,000 pounds, the company says. A breakdown of the items collected include:

  • 20,500 pounds of computers and TV monitors;
  • 4,200 pounds of computing devices and laptops;
  • 12,300 pounds of peripherals and accessories, including keyboards, printers and modems.

Best Buy stores across Canada are expanding the electronics recycling program year-round through the Return To Retail Program. Customers are now able to bring in their electronic waste, no matter where it was purchased, to any store in BC, Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec at any time during the year for safe and free recycling. This year, Best Buy says it has diverted more than one million pounds of e-waste from landfills in Canadian communities through ongoing recycling programs. Best Buy Canada’s website says the company “encourages our customers to dispose of their electronic waste responsibly. All British Columbia stores accept the following: TVs, CPUs, keyboards, speakers, monitors, printers, laptops, hard drives, MP3 players, cell phones and pagers, digital cameras, cameras, telephones, DVD players, CD players, turntables and batteries.

Customers are limited to two items per day.

Staples, Best Buy and Office Depot were the only three major electronics retailers making a serious effort to help consumers recycle old electronic products, said a recent report card released by the Electronics TakeBack Coalition.

While the three companies earned high marks on the report card, more than half of the 16 retailers flunked, including retail giants such as Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Sam’s Club and Sears. The coalition say that these retailers are doing very little to help recycle the billions of dollars in electronics that they sell.

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