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South Korea's Samsung Electronics has said it will invest $4.3B (£2.6B) as part of an initiative to develop new energy-efficient products and halve carbon emissions from its factories by 2013. The consumer electronics giant today unveiled its Eco-Management 2013 plan, under which it will spend $2.5B on improving the energy efficiency of its products -- including TVs, refrigerators and air conditioning systems -- with a goal of delivering the highest levels of efficiency in the consumer electronics industry. Under the plan, standby power consumption on many products will also be halved from 1W to just half a watt, while the company has said it will work to identify new recyclable and organic materials that could be used in the manufacture of consumer products such as laptops and mobile phones. Meanwhile, $1.8B will be invested in halving greenhouse gas emissions from Samsung manufacturing plants. Article by Yvonne Chan, Greener Computing, 7/20/09.

A nonprofit group has developed two new campaigns using technology toward their mission to provide safety to victims and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., have introduced legislation that would promote research and development of programs to improve the recycling of electronic equipment. The Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act would provide research grants to find ways to deal with electronic waste, much of which contains hazardous materials including lead and cadmium.

Cheshire, UK (PRWEB) September 18, 2009 -- A search has been launched today to find 10 talented TV hopefuls to star in a major television advertising campaign to promote mobile phone recycling.

Research project that proposed to conduct a comprehensive study of the current CRT waste situation in the state of Florida (volume of CRT discarded, existing facilities, practices) as well as make projections on trends in future CRT waste streams. The goal of this research to answer questions about trends in volume of discarded CRTs in the future, current CRT waste management practices and trends, and capacity for handling increase in CRT disposal. Page includes links to the project reports, as well as a paper presented at the February 2010 SWANA Thinking Outside of the Blue Box Conference.

Today, more than 40 percent of all homes in the United States contain at least one video game console. Recognizing that all that gaming could add up to serious demand for electricity, NRDC and Ecos Consulting performed the first ever comprehensive study on the energy use of video game consoles and found that they consumed an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year -- roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego. Through the incorporation of more user-friendly power management features, we could save approximately 11 billion kWh of electricity per year, cut our nation's electricity bill by more than $1 billion per year, and avoid emissions of more than 7 million tons of CO2 each year. In this November 2008 issue paper, NRDC provides recommendations for users, video game console manufacturers, component suppliers and the software companies that design games for improving the efficiency of video game consoles already in homes as well as future generations of machines yet to hit the shelves.

Answering questions about both e-waste disposal and recycling involves a host of challenges. For example, little information is available to allow a complete assessment of how e-waste ultimately managed. General estimates have been made about the management of cathode ray tubes (CRTs, the only devices where disposal is federally regulated), but little reliable information is available regarding other categories of e-waste. Further, little information is available regarding the total amount of functioning electronics exported to developing countries for legitimate reuse. What is known is that e-waste recycling involves complex processes and it is more costly to recycle e-waste in the United States, where there is a limited recycling infrastructure. It also is known that most consumer electronics manufacturers (who provide the market for material recovery from recycled electronics) have moved overseas.

This is the first annual report that the Green Electronics Council plans to produce to estimate the life-cycle environmental benefits from the purchase or sale of EPEAT registered electronic products. EPEAT is a system for identifying environmentally preferable personal computers and monitors that is managed by the Green Electronics Council. The product registry and more information can be found at www.epeat.net. In EPEAT, participating manufacturers report to GEC the number of EPEAT registered products that they sell each year.

This study, the first to investigate workplace contamination in areas in Ghana where e-waste recycling and disposal is carried out, focussed on the main centre for this type of work, at the Agbogbloshie scrap market in Ghana's capital, Accra. One of the numerous similar, though far smaller, operations that take place throughout Ghana was also investigated, at the location of a scrap dealer in Korforidua, a smaller city to the north of Accra. At these workshops, e-waste is recycled in a crude way, primarily involving manual disassembly and open burning to isolate copper from plastics. Much of the work is carried out by children, commonly using only rudimentary tools and with no protective equipment.

Four regional Australian councils have adopted a ban on sending electronic waste to landfill, in the hopes that the move will force the federal government to finalize a national recycling scheme. The four councils -- Mosman, Manly, Warringa and Pittwater, which together cover all of Syndey's northern beaches -- have enacted a no-landfill policy effective in January 2010, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Gazelle, the online consumer electronics "reCommerce" service, reported it has partnered with Costco to set up the wholesale club's electronics trade-in and recycle program. The Gazelle Electronics Trade-In and Recycle Program involves three simple steps: 1.Visit costco.gazelle.com to determine the value of the electronic device; 2.Ship the item(s) to Gazelle for free; and 3.Receive a Costco Cash Card for the value of the item(s). The program will accept consumer electronics in a growing number of nearly 20 categories including digital cameras, laptops, MP3 players, cell phones and more.

"To address the information gap on the environmental impacts of leaded and lead-free solders, EPA's DfE Program entered into a voluntary partnership with representatives of the electronics industry and other interested parties to evaluate the environmental impacts of tin-lead and lead-free solders (see the Partners page of this website for more information on project partners). The partnership used a life-cycle assessment approach to examine the impacts of tin-lead, tin-copper, tin-silver-copper, and tin-silver-copper-bismuth solders. " Site includes general project information, milestones, publications and a list of partners.

"The DfE Computer Display Partnership, along with the electronics industry, evaluated the life-cycle environmental impacts, performance, and cost of technologies that are used in desktop computer monitors-namely, cathode ray tubes (CRT) and liquid crystal displays (LCD).This project generated data to assist original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers in the electronics field in incorporating environmental considerations into their decision-making processes and identify areas for improvement. This project combined both the Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the Cleaner Technologies Substitutes Assessment (CTSA) approaches to analyze the environmental impacts, performance, and cost of both CRT and LCD desktop monitors. These evaluations will help the electronics industry: consider alternative technologies, materials, and processes that reduce releases of toxic chemicals, conserve resources, and lower risks to human health and the environment; perform an improvement assessment of display technologies and their components; and meet the growing global demands for 'extended product responsibility.'" Site includes general project information, findings & accomplishments, publications and a list of partners.

6/30/09. "An EU strategy on preventing and recycling waste aims to pave the way towards a recycling society by decoupling economic growth from natural resource use. But questions remain over whether the issue should be dealt with at national or European level, and on how to reconcile the EU's ecological and internal market objectives in the long run." Includes links to more info. on topic, milestones, policy summary with links, an overview of issues, and the positions of various officials on the subject.

Article from The Times of India, 6/30/09. Features comments from state environment secretary and chairperson of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) Valsa R Nair Singh on draft environmental policy. Some quotes related to e-waste (see annotations).

IT professionals have become good environmental and privacy stewards during the past 10 years -- on paper. Corporate policy now generally reflects the fundamental tenets of good electronics stewardship. Yet, how is it possible that a majority of e-waste still is being exported to developing countries, according to most estimates? Article by Robert Houghton (of Redemtech), GreenBiz.com, 6/18/09. Includes a list of five steps to follow for "responsibly recycling e-waste."