eCycling Leadership Initiative to take on the CEA billion pound challenge

E-waste Recycling  |  2013-05-03 08:08:51   |   By

As part of the eCycling Leadership Initiative, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and a dozen leading consumer electronics companies issued an unprecedented national challenge

NEW YORK (Scrap Monster) : As part of the eCycling Leadership Initiative, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and a dozen leading consumer electronics companies issued an unprecedented national challenge to recycle one billion pounds of electronics annually by 2016 – the “Billion Pound Challenge.”

CEA research confirms that a household in the U.S. has an average of 24 CE products in the home, and consumer electronics are widely used in virtually every community in the United States. Given the widespread marketplace penetration of CE products, CEA supports a national approach to eCycling to make recycling electronics as easy as purchasing them.

The second year of the Initiative included increased participation from major CE manufacturers and retailers. The eCycling Leadership Initiative aims to improve consumer awareness of the available collection sites, increase the amount of electronics recycled responsibly to one billion pounds annually by 2016, increase the number of collection opportunities available to consumers and provide transparent metrics on eCycling efforts

In 2012, the recycling industry arranged for more than 585 million pounds of consumer electronics to be recycled. That is an increase of more than 25 percent over 2011 (460 million pounds), and a total increase of almost 100 percent over 2010 (300 million pounds).

As CRT technology has been displaced in the television and computer market by liquid crystal display (LCD), light-emitting diode (LED) and plasma displays, the demand for old CRT glass to make new CRT glass has waned. Since CRT glass is now the largest portion of the CE recycling stream, there is a greater need for new, environmentally sound, economically sustainable uses for this material.