Eliminating e-waste

Staples and HP are implementing a free e-waste recycling program. Their program is a great answer that local businesses and communities have been seeking to address the challenge where up to 80 percent of America's annual e-waste is not recycled representing approximately 300 million electric devices being dumped into landfills.

It's Easy And Free

This program is pretty easy to use. You can bring up to six devices per day into one of Staples' 1500 retail locations. It doesn't matter if you bought the digital devices from Staples or whether they were made by HP. You carry your devices into a Staples store and drop them off at the service desk location which from my experience is right inside the front door. The service desk associate will give you a receipt listing what you have recycled. It's that easy and it's free. The digital items included in this program cover most office digital inventory including computers, mobile phones, monitors, shredders, keyboards and mp3 players. No refrigerators, stoves or similar appliances.

E-waste Recycling Process

The actual recycling is handled by Electronic Recyclers International, Inc. (ERI). They are certified e-Stewards and meet the EPA's R2 standards. One benefit ERI brings to this process is their close proximity to Staples' four regional logistics centers where the e-waste is centralized for reprocessing. By choosing this "on shore" vendor, Staples and HP are creating U.S. jobs. This solution also reflects Staples' and HP's sustainability implementation leadership in designing a locally-focused process that reduces the environmental footprint of the logistics for annually moving millions of pounds of e-waste.

Data Security

Security of business and personal data is always a key issue in recycling computers and smart phones. Here, too, Staples and HP are trying to make this easy. The first recommendation is always wipe your data yourself. There are a number of free software solutions available to do so. To add further protection, ERI will responsibly handle computers and smart phones including the shredding of the storage components within these devices. And for those business owners who still are not sure Staples has in-store "Easy Tech" work associates who can answer questions.