Arlington, Va. — Some 585 million pounds of electronics devices were responsibly recycled in 2012 by CE companies working in the eCycling Leadership Initiative.
The industry effort, spearheaded by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), is designed to increase recycling collaboration among consumers, CE manufacturers, retailers, collectors, recyclers, non-governmental organizations and governments at all levels.
CEA said the 2012 tally represents a 27 percent increase over 2011 and a 95 percent increase since 2010.
What’s more, 99 percent of the recycling handled by eCycling Leadership Initiative participants was conducted in third-party certified recycling facilities last year, the trade group noted. More than 8,000 responsible recycling locations are now available to consumers nationwide, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
The milestones were reported in a new study released today by the CEA, the “Second Annual Report of the eCycling Leadership Initiative.” The report tracks the efforts of the CE industry nationwide to make recycling electronics as easy as purchasing them — and to make responsible recycling of electronics an option for consumers in all 50 states.
“The consumer electronics industry has recycled more than 1.3 billion pounds of electronics since the inception of the eCycling Leadership Initiative. That’s more than enough to fill a 71,000-seat NFL stadium,” said CEA president/CEO Gary Shapiro. “Electronics recycling is a national issue and merits a national approach. CEA continues to push for a national solution for eCycling to eliminate the costly patchwork of state regulations.”
Looking ahead, the eCycling Leadership Initiative wants to increase the amount of responsibly recycled CE to a billion pounds annually by 2016, in what it calls the “Billion Pound Challenge.” Other goals include growing the number of collection opportunities available to consumers, improving consumer awareness of available eCycling collection sites, and providing transparent metrics on eCycling efforts, as provided in today’s report.
“We want to make recycling electronics as easy as purchasing electronics,” said Walter Alcorn, CEA’s environmental affairs and industry sustainability VP. “And through the efforts of the Initiative participants, and CEA’s efforts to promote eCycling directly to consumers via GreenerGadgets.org, we have made great progress toward that goal.”
As part of the effort, CEA and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) launched a second crowd-sourcing “CRT Challenge” to identify financially viable, environmentally conscious proposals for using recycled CRT glass, which has been displaced in the market by LCD, LED and plasma displays. For more information, visit Innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9933317.