Amazon, Best Buy and the free rider problem
“This means, to put it bluntly, that Best Buy is collecting trash generated by Amazon, Walmart and other competitors.”
What’s Going On with Electronic Waste?
“Standards and testing on materials should be done before these products hit the market,” said Kyle. “The government should not be relying on the people working for the recyclers and waste management to act as their canary in the mine shaft.”
Is There a Business Case for Product Take-Back?
May 5, 2015, Triple Pundit: “A lot of the new consumer electronics like tablets and smartphones are made in such a way that they are not economically recyclable. It costs more to take them apart to remove the battery than you can earn in commodities from recycling.”
Stop flunking e-waste: 6 steps to boost electronics recycling
Guardian Sustainable Business: “When it comes to e-waste recycling, most electronics retailers aren’t just struggling; they’re downright failing. At least according to the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which took the industry to task in a recent report.”
Responsible Electronics Recycling Act, to ban overseas dumping of US ewaste, introduced in Congress
The news comes just after one Colorado firm was ordered to pay over $4 million in fines, with two executives sent to prison, for a scheme to illegally dispose of and export electronic waste to China and other foreign countries.
Electronics Retailers Receive Fs on Recycling Report Card
July 18 2013. Environmental Leader: “…more than half of the 16 retailers flunked, including retail giants such as Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Sam’s Club and Sears.”
Walmart, Amazon And Most Other Electronics Stores Fail At Recycling
July 17, 2013: What do you do with your old gadgets? Ideally, you would be able to bring them back to the store where you bought them and drop them off to be recycled but as a new report card shows, there aren’t very many retailers in the nation that make that possible or convenient.
How companies keep us buying new stuff, and how to recycle the rest
PC Magazine, Dec 28, 2012. “The reality is we don’t fix electronics anymore, we replace them.”
Recyclers disagree on impact of glued-in Retina MacBook Pro batteries
July 18, 2012: “…an internal memo sent to AppleCare and certified third-party technicians claims that the battery should not be removed from the aluminum casing “for any reason.”
How did the new MacBook Pros get Gold-level green ratings?
Fortune Magazine, July 14, 2012. But having extricated itself from one environmental cow pie, the company may have stepped right into another.
