Image courtesy of art_es_anna via flickr
You all know what electronic waste is, but did you know that since 2005, it is the fasting growing category of solid municipal waste in the US? According to the EPA, in 2006, we generated 2.9 million tons of e-waste in the US alone. Of this amount, only 330,000 tons (11.4%) was recycled. Part of the problem of the low recycling rates is that not all of the material used in electronics is recyclable, but some think the bigger problem is that there is no incentive for people to recycle their old cell phones, PC's, and printers. I have half a closet full of outdated electronics that I never use, and according to these stats, I'm not alone.Hopefully those e-recycling rates will change for the better when more companies follow HP's lead, and actually offer consumers cash back or credits for their unwanted electronics.
Screw ebay, I'm going to clean out my closet this weekend: www.hp.com/go/ConsumerBuyback
3 comments:
Another big issue is that tech consumer always want the newest and shiniest gadget even if there gadget from last year is still perfectly functional. It would be anti-capitalistic to regulate new products, but we need to reduce there impact. Things like this HP program help and there are other ways to share hand-me downs.
I have used Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org) and it's not hard to find people to come take your old stuff. I'm sure some people just sell it on Ebay after they get it from you, but a lot of people actually are grateful to have your lame old tech.
It's good that HP is facilitating the recycle of their products (this is something all companies should do). Even better than recycling is reusing. It's pretty easy to upgrade desktops instead of buying new ones, but laptops and other electronics are harder to reuse (plus as Matt said, people want that new shiny toy).
Recycling is good, reusing is better, but reducing is best. With the advent of "cloud computing," maybe many of the hardware upgrades we get won't be necessary. If most of the computing is happening online instead of on your hard drive, maybe an old processor won't slow your computer down as much. Plus, more and more companies are putting updates/patches out there to constantly improve the OS's of their gadgets. This allows a single piece of hardware to stay relevant a lot longer.
Nice Post Greg. I have an old Compaq IPAQ that I may send in along with some old laptops that are gathering dust. Doesn't Apple give you a trade-in discount on old ipods?
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