Greentech Lead America: Electronics manufacturers and
retailers have increased the number of recycling drop-off locations for
consumers nationwide to nearly 7,500 from just over 5,000 a year ago.
The consumer electronics industry has significantly
increased its recycling in 2011, advancing the goals set by the eCycling
Leadership Initiative.
Participants of the eCycling Leadership Initiative
arranged for the responsible recycling of 460 million pounds of consumer
electronics, a 53 percent increase over the 300 million pounds recycled in
2010.
In 2011, 96 percent of the recycling done by eCycling
Leadership Initiative participants was conducted in third-party certified
recycling facilities, according to Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).
Meanwhile, CEA launched GreenerGadgets.org to educate
consumers about eCycling and energy consumption. By entering a ZIP code, anyone
can locate the closest responsible recycling opportunity sponsored by the CE
industry and/or third-party certified recycler.
“In the first year of the eCycling Leadership
Initiative, our industry has made significant progress toward its goals due to
the hard work of our member companies,” said Gary Shapiro, president and
CEO of CEA.
The eCycling Leadership Initiative has set the goal of
increasing the amount of electronics recycled responsibly to a billion pounds
annually by 2016, growing the number of collection opportunities available to
consumers.
Recycling one billion pounds of electronics by 2016 would
be a more than threefold increase over 2010. One billion pounds of electronics
not properly recycled would fill about 88.9 million cubic feet, equivalent to
an entire 71,000-seat NFL stadium.