As Tech Trash Piles Up, E-Junk Recycling Still in its Infancy
Published: Tuesday, December 07, 2004
When Office Depot, Inc. stores ran an electronics recycling drive last summer that accepted everything from cell phones to televisions, some stores were overwhelmed by the amount of e-trash they received.
Contrast that with a mobile phone recycling drive by Westchester County, N.Y., home to more than 900,000 people. It collected just 32 cell phones, which the county sold on eBay Inc. for $82.
No current figures exist for how much e-junk is recycled, but people in the industry believe it's a sliver of the total. People simply don't know where to take their e-trash, so much of it sits in drawers. The toxic materials many electronics contain, such as lead and mercury, present more obstacles.
A National Safety Council study done four years ago found that less than 10 percent of techno trash was recycled.
In part because the gadget industry is relatively young, recycling efforts tend to be scattershot: All Staples Inc. stores and some Whole Foods Market Inc. stores will take old cell phones, but few people think to take recyclables to the mall. Many cities will only pick up e-trash on scheduled hazardous waste collection days, which are often months apart.
Tech recycling now is where aluminum-can recycling was 20 years ago, said Walt Rosenberg, vice president for corporate, social and environmental responsibility at Hewlett-Packard Co.
"One of the big inhibitors is a lack of refined recycling infrastructure globally for computer equipment," he said. "Will it get there? Yes. Will it take time? Yes."
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