Free Electronics Recycling Program Offered At Port Chester Staples

HP,, together with Staples, the office products company, have joined forces to create a free electronics recycling program for all brands of office technology at Staples stores nationwide, including .

Consumers and small businesses can responsibly recycle their electronics every day at Staples, regardless of where the devices were purchased.

“HP is a leader in the technology industry in product reuse and recycling,” said Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president of sustainability and social innovation, HP. “We recently celebrated reaching our goal of recycling 2 billion pounds of electronic products and HP supplies since 1987 and our collaboration with Staples will build upon this achievement and focus on increasing electronics recycling in all states.”

The Staples technology recycling program, powered by HP, accepts all brands of the following electronics for free:

•     Desktop PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, external hard drives and small servers

•     All computer monitors

•     Printers, desktop copiers, faxes and all-in-one devices

•     Mice, keyboards, modems/routers networking and PC speakers

•     Shredders, streaming devices, phones and Universal Power Supply (UPS battery backup)

•     Mobile phones, GPS devices, MP3 players, digital camcorders and digital cameras

“Staples free tech recycling program will help increase the number of electronic products that are safely recycled,” said Mark Buckley, vice president of environmental affairs for Staples.  “As a trusted source for office solutions, Staples is making it easy for consumers to responsibly recycle electronics for free every day at our stores. We are excited to work with HP on this initiative as part of our ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability.”

Customers can drop off their technology for recycling at the service desk of the Port Chester Staples store. Staples will take advantage of its logistics networks to collect the devices and consolidate them at its distribution centers. A certified e-stewards and an R2 recycler will then arrange to have the materials transported to its processing centers.

Even though electronic waste, or e-waste, currently comprises less than 4 percent of the total solid waste stream in the United States, it’s been estimated that the volume of e-waste is increasing 2 to 3 times faster than other waste streams (e.g. paper or yard waste), according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA says e-waste includes products such as computers, keyboards, monitors, printers, televisions, cell phones, data storage devices, and VCR/DVD players - just about anything with a circuit board or power cord. For example, 490 million personal computers were retired between 2000 and 2005, and the number is expected to increase to 955 million between 2005 and 2010, according to EPA statistics.

For more information about e-waste and recycling, check out the EPA's website.

In 2006, a Westchester County law made it illegal to just throw away an old cell phones, with a state law then taking effect in 2007. The EPA partners with consumer electronics manufacturers, retailers, and service providers creating Plug-In To eCycling with US EPA.

Additional information is available at HP’s and Staples websites at www.hp.com/us/go/recycling or http://www.staples.com/recycle.