Who's Recycling Techno Trash?
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No current figures exist for how much e-junk is recycled, but industry experts believe it's a sliver of the total. People don't know where to take their used electronics, and toxic components are a mounting problem.
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By Dubie, Denise  Getting rid of obsolete computer gear isn't as simple as it used to be. The threat of data loss, coupled with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, has IT pros rethinking their disposal methods.
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Toss this small soda maker in the recycling bin.
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(InfoWorld) - The EIA (Electronic Industries Alliance), a trade group representing manufacturers of tech products, has come up with a recycling agreement supported by both television and computer hardware makers, it said Thursday. The agreement, covering TV sets, computer monitors, desktops, and laptops sold to consumers, is the first e-waste plan supported by a consensus of TV and IT hardware manufacturers, said Matthew Flanigan, the EIA's interim president and CEO. EIA members will use the agreement to push for the U.S. Congress to pass a consistent national e-waste policy, EIA officials said. Five states have passed electronics recycling laws, and all of those laws differ significantly, said Richard Goss, EIA's vice president of environmental affairs. Congress "is our preferred venue for getting this issue resolved," Goss said. "I don't think it serves anyone's interest -- the manufacturers, the retailers, the recyclers, the general public alike -- to have this patchwork of state approaches." Under the EIA plan, retailers of TV sets would collect a recycling fee when the sets are purchased. That fee, not yet determined, could give the entire cost of transport and recycling for televisions. For computer hardware, manufacturers would be required to offer "reasonably convenient" recycling services at no cost to consumers. Several IT hardware makers have already instituted recycling programs, while most TV set makers have not. The TV fee would be temporary to help pay for the recycling of the millions of TV sets already sold, EIA officials said. The EIA will share the agreement with members of Congress interested in e-waste issues. One bill in Congress, introduced in January by Representative Mike Thompson, a California Democrat, would establish a recycling program through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The recycling fee could not be more than $10 per piece of hardware. Several manufacturers praised the agreement. The plan is an "important step forward in achieving industry consensus," Matt Krupnick, public policy counsel for Dell, said in a statement. The agreement would require manufacturers to keep recycling records and to use recyclers that meet environmental management standards. Another part of the agreement calls for manufacturers to meet hazardous materials restrictions established by the European Union's Restriction on Hazardous Substances directive and a similar California statute. It's important for manufacturers marketing products worldwide to have similar requirements in the countries they sell to, Goss said.
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PC Magazine - Toshiba said Tuesday that it has expanded its electronics recycling program to pay cash for used cameras, servers, mobile phones, and other products. The electronics manufacturer will also accept old notebook PCs for free.
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(InfoWorld) - Hard drives full of confidential data are still turning up on the second-hand market, researchers have reported. Investigations carried out on behalf of BT by the University of Glamorgan in the U.K., Edith Cowan University in Australia, and Longwood University in the U.S., found that 37 percent of drives surveyed had traces of personal data on them. Damningly, this figure is much the same as it was for the same surveys undertaken by the universities in each of the last two years, suggesting that either companies are ignoring the issue or simply lack the tools to adequately wipe data before resale. Sensitive information retrieved included salary details, financial data of specific companies, credit card numbers, medical data, visa applications, details of online purchases, and inevitably, online pornography. The sample totalled 350 hard drives acquired in online auctions. "Given the level of exposure that the subjects of security and identity theft has received in recent times, and the availability of suitable tools to ensure the safe disposal of information, it is difficult to understand why disks are still not being effectively cleaned before they are disposed off," said BT's security research head, Dr Andy Jones. "When organizations dispose off surplus and obsolete computers and hard disks, they must ensure that adequate procedures are in place to destroy any data and also to check that the procedures that are in place are effective -- whether they are handled by internal resources or through a third party contractor," he said. The full report -- which has yet to be made publically available -- reveals that buying second-hand disks is an unreliable way to get hold of storage. Of the 133 disks bought in the U.K., 44 percent of them didn't even work. But of those that did, 19 percent had enough information on them to identify the organization from which they had come, 65 percent had enough data to identify named people, and 17 percent contained "illicit" data. Techworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Plug into your community with eCycle event Jan. 13  Get a new computer or printer for Christmas but don't know how to properly dispose of the old one? Then look no further than Computer Recycling Day on Jan. 13.  The event, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
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CHICAGO, May 30  /PRNewswire/ -- Renters are going green as a recent Apartments.com survey indicates more than sixty-three percent of survey respondents who live in an apartment community recycle regularly.
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Online auction company eBay Inc.  EBAY.O on Thursday unveiled an initiative to join personal  computer makers and their environmental critics in an effort to  recycle more of the up to 400 million electronic products that  are thrown out every year.
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For worn-out electronic gear, the end of the road could be a Hewlett-Packard recycling plant in Roseville, Calif.Photos: HP's hardware graveyard
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Also: UN warning on e-waste 'mountain.' Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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OSLO, Norway - Arild Tofte and Kaare Heggdal know that recycling pays, but they weren't quite prepared for the jackpot that a scrapped cash machine contained.  It was still full of cash. Enough to buy a house and take a luxury vacation.
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ORANGEVILLE, Ontario, June 4  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Organic Recycling Technologies Inc. ("The Company") (Pink Sheets: ORCY) -- today announced that Mr. Ed Kroeker, President & CEO, has released his due diligence review of the past history of the Company concerning the appointment of Michael D.
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(InfoWorld) - Electronics manufacturers will have to collect and recycle outdated PCs -- but not TVs -- from consumers in Texas, according to a bill working its way through the state legislature that could become a model for other states. According to the legislation, called House Bill 2714, manufacturers would have to place a sticker on any computer or monitor they wanted to sell in the state, informing consumers that they may return the equipment to the vendor for recycling or reuse without paying an additional fee. Each manufacturer would then have to file an annual report to state regulators listing the weight of computer equipment they have recycled or reused. PCs and computer peripherals put out in curbside trash end up in landfills, where they can leach lead, mercury, and other toxins into the environment. "Texans generate a massive amount of 'e-waste' every year -- enough to threaten to overwhelm our landfills, let alone poison our air or water. But I believe that if we partner with manufacturers who are increasingly concerned about the issue, we can find a better home for our aging computers and iPods," said the bill's sponsor, Texas state Senator Kirk Watson, in a statement on his Web site. The bill passed votes in the state Senate and House of Representatives in May and awaits a signature from Texas Governor Rick Perry. A spokeswoman for the governor's office confirmed on Friday that Perry had received the bill but said he had not yet announced whether he would sign it by the June 17 deadline. Despite the bill's smooth progress through the Texas statehouse, some recycling experts warn that it is incomplete. The bill has a good fiscal structure as it assigns environmental responsibility to the PC manufacturer instead of the consumer, the state, or the landfill operator, said Ted Smith, senior strategist for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. But the bill is flawed because it focuses only on PCs and their peripherals instead of covering a wider array of electronic equipment. "We prefer the 'producer responsibility' approach rather than the consumer fee approach, so that part we like," Smith said. "However, the Texas bill only applies to computers and not to TVs -- this is a major weakness and is as a result of Dell's lobbying position. TVs are just as toxic and problematic as computers, and we favor a comprehensive approach that covers both." Dell has a major corporate presence in the state as the world's second-largest PC vendor has headquarters in Round Rock, just outside of the state capital of Austin. On Friday, Dell denied opposing the inclusion of television sets in the law, but said that TVs do not fit easily into standard PC recycling streams because they include different components than computers and have a far longer lifecycle. "Our focus was, 'Let's make sure that IT and consumer electronics get in there, and if legislators want to put other electronics in the mix, that would be fine with us.' But what we didn't want to do was to slow or stall the process of the legislation," said Dell spokeswoman Colleen Ryan. In fact, if the law passes in its current form, it would have no impact on Dell's current recycling policies because the company already offers worldwide free recycling of used Dell equipment, she said. "Our take is that the marketplace is best positioned to address recycling and that the legislature shouldn't collect fees or create new government infrastructure for recycling. We think Texas is an opportunity to set an example for the rest of the nation." Dell is now working with policymakers in several other states to create the same type of "market-driven" approach to recycling, including electronics recycling bills now pending in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, she said. Those bills have a different model than existing laws in California, Maine, Maryland, and Washington, which impose taxes on consumers or fees on vendors in order to fund government programs that administer the recycling programs, she said. Despite the criticism of its lobbying efforts, Dell has announced a handful of recycling and power-efficiency iniatives in recent days. On Friday, Dell said that the EPEAT government procurement Web site awarded its highest rating to Dell's Latitude D630 notebook PC as well as the OptiPlex 740 and 745 desktops. Dell also announced a plan on Tuesday to reduce the carbon intensity of its global operations by 15 percent by 2012, helping reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. "We ultimately think this [state bill] is the simplest, most effective way to recycle outdated electronics, and we hope the governor sees it the same way," Ryan said.
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Councils in England will be allowed to pilot schemes to charge households according to how much rubbish they throw out. Is this the best way to promote recycling?
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By ANN S. KIM Staff Writer  When the two plastic crates at Tom Wiest's home fill up, it's time to head to the downtown recycling station. His desire to help the environment makes him a regular visitor.
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Watch and learn as TechRepublic dives into the innards of a vinyl-to-MP3 turntable.