tagged w/ E-Recycling
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Operation Ivy depicts the incredible amount of stuff students throw away at the end of the academic year at five elite colleges, Yale, Harvard, Trinity, Williams, and Wesleyan. It shows how people who live and work near the colleges react -- by dumpster diving the stuff for themselves and their families.Operation Ivy depicts the incredible amount of stuff students throw away at the end of... more
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In an effort to improve electronics recycling in the United States, the U.S. Postal Service is developing a free national collection program for small electronic items.
The program, now in a pilot stage, provides courtesy envelopes with pre-paid postage for patrons to deposit their unwanted digital cameras, printer cartridges, MP3 players, cell phones, and PDAs. International recycling company Clover Technologies Group processes the devices in its U.S. and Mexican facilities and then refurbishes and resells them if possible.
Now limited to select cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, the program may expand nationwide in the fall, and it eventually may accept a wider range of devices.
The program would be a de facto national electronic recycling program, the first for the United States. As the only industrialized nation not to ratify the 1989 Basel Convention, which requires its signatories to notify developing nations of incoming hazardous waste shipments, many environmentalists have criticized the country for its lack of action to reduce the international spread of electronic garbage, known as e-waste.
Americans discard at least 2 million tons of household electronics each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Less than 20 percent of that e-waste is recycled, although state-led initiatives are beginning to improve this recycling rate. Once recycled, however, e-waste is frequently sold to brokers who ship it to the developing world, where it is often dismantled with little regard for worker safety, then burned in the open air or dumped into bodies of water.
In an effort to improve electronics recycling in the United States, the U.S. Postal... more
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Free and green - those are the goals of a pilot program launched by the US Postal Service that allows customers to recycle small electronics and inkjet cartridges by mailing them free of charge.
The "Mail Back" program helps consumers make more environmentally friendly choices, making it easier for customers to discard used or obsolete small electronics in an environmentally responsible way. Customers use free envelopes found in 1,500 Post Offices to mail back inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players - without having to pay for postage.
Postage is paid for by Clover Technologies Group, a nationally recognized company that recycles, remanufactures and remarkets inkjet cartridges, laser cartridges and small electronics. If the electronic item or cartridges cannot be refurbished and resold, its component parts are reused to refurbish other items, or the parts are broken down further and the materials are recycled. Clover Technologies Group has a "zero waste to landfill" policy: it does everything it can to avoid contributing any materials to the nation's landfills.
The pilot is set for 10 areas across the country, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego, but could become a national program this fall if the pilot program proves successful.Free and green - those are the goals of a pilot program launched by the US Postal... more
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