Arlington, VA—On April 13, 2011, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and a dozen leading consumer electronics companies launched a national initiative to recycle 1 billion pounds of electronics annually by 2016—the Billion Pound Challenge. CEA announced that as part of this eCycling Leadership Initiative, the consumer electronics (CE) industry dramatically increased its recycling in 2011.
This week the CEA released the First Annual Report of the eCycling Leadership Initiative, revealed the following achievements:
- Participants of the eCycling Leadership Initiative arranged for the responsible recycling of 460 million pounds of consumer electronics, a 53% increase over the 300 million pounds recycled in 2010.
- Electronics manufacturers and retailers increased the number of recycling drop-off locations for consumers nationwide to nearly 7,500 from just over 5,000 a year ago. By the end of 2011, 96% of the recycling done by eCycling Leadership Initiative participants was conducted in third-party certified recycling facilities.
- CEA launched GreenerGadgets.org to educate consumers about eCycling and energy consumption. By entering a ZIP code, anyone can locate the closest responsible recycling opportunity sponsored by the CE industry and/or third-party certified recycler.
“In the first year of the eCycling Leadership Initiative, our industry has made significant progress toward its goals due to the hard work of our member companies,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA. “We continue to push for a national solution to eCycling that will eliminate the costly and confusing patchwork of state regulations.”
The eCycling Leadership Initiative is a collaboration among consumer electronics manufacturers, retailers, collectors, recyclers, nongovernmental organizations and governments at all levels, spearheaded by the CEA.
As part of its ongoing efforts, CEA has promoted GreenerGadgets.org since its launch through online ads, social media and traditional media outreach. CEA will continue with these efforts, as well as the cultivation of meaningful partnerships to promote electronics recycling. Recently, CEA formed a partnership with Recyclebank, an innovative online rewards site with more than 3 million members. Recyclebank members will be able to earn rewards points for recycling electronics through the GreenerGadgets.org recycling tool.
GreenerGadgets.org also provides a widget for managers of other websites to use the ZIP code locator on their website at no charge. By utilizing the GreenerGadgets widget, companies can educate consumers on how to properly recycle their used electronics and help ensure reusable resources do not go to landfills or get dumped in developing countries.
The initiative has set the goals of increasing the amount of electronics recycled responsibly to a billion pounds annually by 2016, growing the number of collection opportunities available to consumers, improving consumer awareness of available eCycling collection sites and providing transparent metrics on eCycling efforts. One billion pounds of electronics not properly recycled would fill about 88.9 million cubic feet, equivalent to an entire 71,000-seat NFL stadium. ce.org
