Items tagged with Recycling
Microsoft decided to file criminal charges against an e-waste recycler named Eric Lundgren. The case against Lundgren originally went to court months ago, but the man remained free as his appeal worked its way through the court system. A federal appeals court has now upheld the original ruling, meaning that Lundgren will serve a 15-month prison sentence and will be forced to pay a $50,000 fine. What led to this harsh prison sentence? Lundgren had taken to downloading free software that Microsoft offers to Windows users commonly called restore disks. Lundgren's idea was to make these discs available to computer recycling shops so that they wouldn't need to make the disks themselves. He also wanted...
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It’s Earth Day, and Apple is marking the occasion with some good PR, announcing a new free recycling program on its Environment website. Starting now, you can take your old Apple products to any Apple store, and they’ll recycle the product(s) for free, and responsibly. Apple also said that occasionally, it will hold events where you can bring in other company’s products for free recycling. (There’s no word on whether Apple will gleefully dispose of those competitor products and then hard sell you on the latest Apple gear.) Even better, if a given product has any value left and can be resold, Apple will give you some money back for it, too. Apple is also promising that...
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For a company that makes its bones off of making its own products seem outdated every six months or so, Apple seems committed to recycling used electronics. Apple expanded its recycling program in the UK, France, and Germany; now, the company has (or at least participates in) such programs all over the world, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Costa Rica, Australia, the Asia Pacific, Japan, India, the Middle East, and Africa. The various programs differ somewhat; for example, you can get some money back for your electronics in the form of a gift card in North America, but in Europe, you can get cash deposited directly into your bank account. In Europe, a company called Dataserv is handling the...
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We all know that today's flat-screen TVs weigh far less than old-style CRTs, or they wouldn't be able to hang on the wall. New research from the Consumer Electronics Association finds that this translates into a massive savings of electronics waste. The report found that today’s flat screen TVs are 82% lighter and 75% smaller than cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs. In other words, 40- to 70-inch flat-panel TVs weigh 34% less than 13- to 36-inch CRT TVs. Plasma TVs have also gotten dramatically lighter. They weighed 125 pounds on average in 2004. Today they average a slim 59 pounds. Now that's an effective diet. This reduction in materials has a staggering downstream effect. The report proclaimed...
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eBay has launched a new program that lets people trade in their old cell phones and other electronics for instant cash. If the devices aren't worth a dime, it will send you pre-paid postage to responsibly recycle the device. With the company's new InstantSale website, you'll be offering up your old device to various companies in the business of buying them for valuable metals, components and refurbishing. You plug in details about your device and you get an instant cash offer, deposited to your PayPal account. If the thing is a brick phone from the 1980's and worth nothing, then eBay will send you a shipping label to send it to a responsible recycler. Wait, if it really is a brick phone, you...
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We all have old cell phones lying around collecting dust. Now, thanks to a new automated kiosk from ecoATM, you can recycle your old cell phone and get a reward for doing so. The self-serve eCycling station from ecoATM electronically inspects your phone, assigns it a real-time secondary market value, and then provides an in-store trade-up coupon or gift card (assuming the handset still has monetary worth). If your handset doesn't have any value, you can assign the device to the recycle bin where it will be recycled or refurbished. ecoATM recently rolled out its first recycling kiosk at Nebraska Furniture Mart in Omaha, NE. The company plans to install additional eCycling Stations at several national...
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Everyone who has a cell phone has, somewhere, a drawer filled with old chargers from long-gone handsets. Those days soon will come to an end in Europe, where all the top mobile phone producers have agreed to make all their data-enabled sets use the same chargers. The European Commission, according to Reuters, announced the pact today. EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen hailed it as a movie that would save thousands of tons of waste each year on the continent. About 185 million new phones are bought annually in Europe and there are about 400 million cell phones total. While the pact doesn't apply to all phones - those that just accept standard calls and SMS texts can still have any old...
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If you are looking to get rid of an old computer, TV, or consumer electronics device, all Best Buy stores, nationwide, will help you recycle it. Starting on the day after Valentine's Day--Sunday, February 15--all 1,006 of the Best Buy stores in the U.S. (Puerto Rico will be added in 2010), will be participating in Best Buy's new electronics recycling program. Unless you live in California, it will cost you $10 per item to recycle items that have screens, such as TVs, computer monitors, or laptops. You can recycle TVs up to 32-inches in size, and Best Buy will waive the fee for " Best Buy's Exclusive-Branded products, such as Insignia, Dynex, and VPR Matrix ;" however, consumers " will instantly...
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