Hewlett-Packard and office products retailer Staples have teamed up to offer free electronics recycling for all brands of office technology at Staples stores nationwide.
Small businesses and consumers can drop off used computers, cell phones, MP3 players, fax machines and similar items at any Staples store, regardless of where they were purchased, for HP to recycle.
HP recently announced it had recycled two billion pounds of electronics and supplies since 1987. The company is hoping to build on this total with the Staples collaboration. In 2010, Staples collected more than 10 million pounds of old technology to be recycled in the U.S.
A similar program called Dell Reconnect is administered by electronics giant Dell and thrift store chain Goodwill Industries. Since its inception in 2004, the program has recycled more than 230 million pounds of end-of-life computer equipment, helping Dell toward its global goal of recycling 1 billion pounds of computer equipment by 2014.
In December, Dell and Goodwill announced that an additional 319 donation sites in the U.S. had joined the Dell Reconnect computer recycling program. There are now more than 2,600 Goodwill drop-off locations in the U.S. and Canada offering free electronics recycling.
According to figures released in 2010 39 percent of Americans recycle all of their old electronic gadgets. The Retrevo survey also revealed that 17 percent of respondents did not know how to recycle their old electronic equipment and 11 percent said e-recycling was not available where they lived.
Source: Environmental Leader