A Word About Recycling with Ollie Maier
As the coronavirus is still affecting our lives, the protests nationwide are now the most seen news. While the following information, taken from the Electronic Recycling Update newsletter, has nothing to do with the protests, I hope this info is interesting and informative to you.
Starting off in Texas, “Over 12.5 million pounds of TVs and 6.8 million pounds of computer equipment were collected through Texas state e-scrap programs last year," according to a recent report.
The report came from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). This annual report covered the 2019 results of the Texas Recycles Computers and Texas Recycles Televisions programs. It showed while computer collections were down a little from the previous year, TV collections were slightly higher.
Under the laws of these Texas programs, manufacturers that sell devices covered are required to offer convenient recycling options, or to collect a target weight based on their sales.
The largest weight of computer equipment in 2019 was HP with 3.1 million pounds. Dell was second with 2.6 million pounds. It was followed by Acer with 500,000 pounds, Best Buy with 248,000 pounds and LG with 191,000 pounds.
Going to TV manufacturers, the largest collectors were Samsung with 4.2 million pounds and LG with 1.9 million pounds. They were followed by Best Buy with 1.4 million pounds, TTE Technology with 965,000 pounds and Hisense USA with 947,000 pounds.
These recycling programs were started in 2009 and 2013. Since then, they have brought in 278.5 million pounds of computers and TVs combined. While most of this material was recycled, about 8.4 million pounds was reused.
It is also nice to note that computer manufacturers collected an additional 44.4 million pounds of electronics which they were not required by law to accept over the life of the computer recycling program — makes one proud.
More good news on electronics recycling. Recently, the Sustainable Electronics Recycling International (SERI) Board of Directors unanimously approved R2v3. It is an update to R2:2013, which is the electronics recycling and reuse standard.
This was no easy task. It took thousands of volunteer hours and dozens of meetings during nearly a five-year period to complete the update of the R2 standard.
A spokesperson for the update committee stated, “I think it’s a good document. As with all consensus documents, it’s not perfect, and of course never will be, but it’s definitely a very good document and it’s definitely worth the 5,000-plus hours we put into it.”
The update will be used by over 950 facilities around the world which are currently certified. Along with the R2v3 update, SERI will simultaneously upload a plan for transitioning to the new standard. They expect the transition to the new document may take at least 1.5 years to complete.
The article went on to explain some of the changes that will need to come about because of the update, but I will save that for another column.
Till next week, do have a good one.
Ollie is a local citizen concerned with the environment and helping others. A retired Air Force fighter and instructor pilot, he is a graduate of Leadership San Marcos and received his degrees at Texas State University where he worked on staff before totally retiring. For questions or comments, he invites you to call him at 512-353-7432.
