By Gemma Childe on 19th Apr 2012
Dell and Apple are among members of the electronics industry’s eCycling Leadership Initiative that helped increase the amount of recycled goods by 53 per cent last year.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the participants in the eCycling Leadership Initiative recycled £460million of consumer electronics, up from £300million in 2010.
The initiative, also known as the Billion Pound Challenge, is a collaboration of consumer electronics manufacturers, retailers, collectors, recyclers, non-governmental organisations and all levels of government. Other members include Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard, Nintendo, Panasonic, LG, Mitsubishi, Vizio, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba and Sony.
Its first annual report describes how Hewlett-Packard and the office products retailer Staples teamed up to offer free electronics recycling for office technology at Staples stores nationwide.
A similar program called Dell Reconnect was administered by the electronics firm and the thrift store chain Goodwill Industries.
Electronics manufacturers and retailers increased the number of recycling drop-off points for consumers from just over 5,000 a year ago to nearly 7,500. CEA launched a tool on GreenerGadgets.org which enabled consumers to locate the closest recycling drop-off location.
Ninety-six per cent of the recycling carried out by the participants of the initiative was conducted in third-party certified recycling facilities, according to the report.
The initiative aims to increase the number of electronics recycled responsibly to £1billion annually by 2016. It also hopes to grow the number of collection points available to consumers and improve consumer awareness eCycling collection sites.