FundingFactory Pays Colleges to Collect E-Waste

FundingFactory, a recycling fundraiser program of Clover Technologies Group, has launched Collected, a free electronic waste recycling program for college campuses that lets schools exchange e-waste for cash or rewards.

The program also prevents millions of pounds of e-waste from reaching landfills, FundingFactory says.

Collected pays higher education institutions for collecting used inkjet and toner printer cartridges, cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras and laptops. Through online accounts at FundingFactory.com, participants can track their reuse and recycle rates, raw materials breakdown, carbon emission offsets, as well as shipments and earnings.

After registering, colleges and universities receive benefits at no cost including free freight or UPS ground shipping, collection bins and shipping boxes, and support and customizable promotional materials.

Philadelphia’s Drexel’s College of Media Arts & Design adopted FundingFactory’s Collected free cartridge recycling program in 2002. Since then, the school has recycled 9,186 cartridges, keeping more than 3,000 lbs. of waste out of landfills, FundingFactory says.

Similary, FundingFactory partner Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC, has recycled more than 3,400 cartridges, amounting to more than 5,500 lbs. of waste kept out of landfills.

FundingFactory also provides free recycling programs for K-12 schools, nonprofits and charities. Since its inception in 1998, FundingFactory and its partners have provided more than $35 million in funding to US schools and nonprofits, and saved over 64 million pounds of waste from landfills, the organization says.

Easier consumer access to scrap electronics collection sites, spurred by manufacturer funding, has contributed to an increase in e-waste recycling and a decrease in government spending in New York State, according to a report published last month by the Product Stewardship Institute for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In June, eRecyclingCorps, a wireless device trade-in provider that partners with Sprint, Verizon, TELUS and other major wireless carriers, announced it exceeded 1.1 million trade-in devices in May, setting a new record for device collection in one month and diverting more than 450,000 pounds of e-waste from landfills.