Product Stewardship for Electronics: EPAs Current Initiatives

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Product Stewardship for ElectronicsEPAs
Current Initiatives
1EPA
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BackgroundProduct Stewardship in Electronics
Gaining Momentum

• International Initiatives RoHs Directive, WEEE
  Directive, ELV Directive, Basel Convention Mobile
  Phone Partnership Initiative
• Domestic Initiatives EPAs CRT Rule, California
  SB 20, legislative activity in Maine,
  Massachusetts and Minnesota.

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EPAs Goal

• Electronic Products are designed and manufactured
  so they are
• Have lower impact on the environment,
• Contain fewer hazardous and toxic constituents,
  and
• Easier to reuse and recycle
• Increased market demand for greener electronic
  products
• There are convenient, low cost electronics reuse
  and recycling centers and
• Reuse and recycling centers are environmentally
  safe and robust markets exist for the materials

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EPAs commitment to reusing and safely recycling
used electronics Current Focus

• I. Increase Safe Recovery of Discarded
  Electronics
• II. Set Federal Example in Improved Stewardship
  of Electronics

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I. Increasing Safe RecoveryPlug-In To
eCycling-www.plugintoecycling.org

• Housed in the EPAs Office of Solid
• Wastes Product Stewardship Team,
• Plug-In is
• A consumer electronics
• recycling outreach
• campaign that aims to
• increase the availability of safe
• electronics recycling.

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Plug-In Partnerships

• EPA fosters partnerships with
• manufacturers, retailers and
• government organizations to
• focus more national attention
• on electronics recycling options and give
• consumers more places and
• opportunities to safely, conveniently
• and affordably recycle old electronics

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Plug-In Partners Who are they and what do they
do?

• Some examples
• Manufacturers
• Retailers
• State and Local Governments
• Agree to host collection and outreach
• events, feature ecycling information on
• website and advertising information,
• document data collection, use recyclers
• that meet EPAs ESM recycling guidelines.

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Plug-In Plans for State and Local Governments

• Update Event Toolkit
• FAQs for Choosing Recyclers
• Listserve
• Plug-In awareness events in collaboration with
  state and local governments (i.e. Earth
  Day/electronics collection with DC Office of
  Recycling)

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How does EPA support partner efforts?

• Recognizes partners at public events and in
  publications and outreach materials
• EPA officials mention partners on relevant news
  programs
• Highlights partners in press releases
• Provides technical assistance as needed for
  collection events

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Upcoming Pilot Initiatives

• Testing range of ways where manufacturers,
  retailers,
• governments and others can share financial
• responsibility for recycling old electronics
• Staples New England Pilot electronics takeback
  program with manufacturer and retailer financial
  support
• Office Depot/Good Guys Pacific Northwest Pilot
  electronics takeback program with manufacturer
  and retailer financial support
• Best Buy Minnesota Pilot strategic awareness
  raising of drop off service
• Staples Redmond, WA/ Portland, OR Takeback
  Initiative.
• 3,000 computers and notebook computers dropped
  off at stores for recycling.
• More than 2,130 donations made in the Puget Sound
  area
• More than 410 donations made in the
  Portland/Willamette Valley area.
• Represents over 25,000 in donations for local
  school districts.

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Achievements and Next Steps

• Achievements
• Since the program was launched in Jan. 2003, EPA
  signed on 15 members in the manufacturing and
  retail sectors. More than 26.4 million pounds of
  electronics were collected by partners in the
  first 10 months of the program.
• Next Steps
• Continue recruiting private sector partners
• Continue to generate awareness in media and
  national events
• Improve outreach and awareness tools for local
  governments and private partners
• Launch national ecycling data collection
  mechanism
• Encourage widespread use of Plug-Ins Safe
  Recycling (ESM) Guidelines NOW AVAILABLE

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II. Improving Federal Stewardship of Electronics

• Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC)-
  www.federalelectronicschallenge.net
• Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool
  (EPEAT)- www.epeat.net

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What is the Federal Electronics Challenge?

• The FEC is a purchasing, use, and end-of-life
  management challenge issued for federal
  facilities or agencies to
• 1. Purchase greener electronic products
• 2. Manage electronic assets in an environmentally
  sound manner
• 3. Receive assistance to improve current
  practices

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Some quick facts

• Approximately 10,000 federally owned computers
  deemed excess or surplus each week
• FEC establishing ESM guidelines and audit process
  for Federal Agencies
• U.S. federal sector represents a significant
  market share for electronics
• FY 2003 IT budget 53 BILLION (Hardware
  Services)
• FY 2004 IT budget approximately 59 BILLION
  (Hardware Services), FY 2005 and beyond
  GROWING!
• Electronics represent serious environmental costs
  and opportunities for Federal Agencies
• Federal Agencies CARE and are looking toward the
  FEC for answers.
• See opportunities for cost savings and
  environmental gain
• Avoid potential liability

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What is EPEAT?

• To develop, build-on or adopt an assessment tool
  for electronic products and services and to
  actively disseminate saidassessment tool.
• The tool should
• Promote continuous improvement
• Address the lifecycle
• Inform purchasing decisions by institutional
  purchasers
• Provide market advantage
• Be low cost, user friendly, and causes minimal
  delay in time to market
• Produces credible, verifiable outcomes
• Provides value in the marketplace

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Major Electronics Projects
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For more information

• Plug-in to eCycling
• www.plugintoecycling.org
• Verena Radulovic, USEPA
• Tel [phone] radulovic.verena_at_epa.gov
• Federal Electronics Challenge
• www.federalelectronicschallenge
• -Sonia Kassambara, Office of the Federal
  Environmental Executive
• Tel [phone] kassambara.sonia_at_epa.gov
• -Viccy Salazar, EPA Project Manger
• Tel [phone] salazar.viccy_at_epa.gov
• EPEAT
• www.epeat.net
• -Viccy Salazar, EPA Project Manger (see above)
• -Larry Chalfan, Project Manager, Zero Waste
  Alliance
• Tel [phone] lchalfan_at_zerowaste.org

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The Big Picture on EPAs Electronics Sector Work