News: eBay Takes Aim at Old PCs and ‘E-Waste’
August 28th, 2005 by Laurie BarakSource: ABC News
Your cell phone service provider throws in a new phone for renewing a two-year contract. Your child returns to school with a new computer and leaves the older, less powerful one behind. These and other situations are creating a growing problem.
“Over 400 million PCs will be replaced in the next three years and … on average, a cell phone gets replaced every 18 months,” says Stephani Regalia, senior manager of eBay Computers. “And 75 percent of the systems end up stockpiled in garages, closets or offices.”
That wouldn’t be so bad — if all those unwanted pieces of digital gear stayed hidden. But eventually they end up cluttering local landfills and municipal dumps, where the toxic materials such as lead, cadmium and mercury leech out of the trashed machines and pollute the air, land and water.
“It’s estimated that although Americans know that throwing away electronics is damaging to the environment, only about 15 percent of them know that there are ways to dispose of them properly in their area,” says Regalia.
That’s why earlier this year, eBay joined forces with several other tech companies and environmental groups to create the “Rethink” Initiative. The program is designed to teach and help consumers find better get rid of unwanted electronics.
At the program’s Web site, www.Rethink.eBay.com, consumers will find virtual pages of information on how to sell, donate or recycle old digital gear. Some of the program’s partners even provide online tools that help consumers determine which course of action makes sense.
For example, the site has “trade-in calculators” provided by Dealtree that help Web visitors determine the resale value of an old piece of equipment. And if consumers think it’s worth selling an old laptop, there are also links to other useful tools — such as an online program that can be used to completely erase a computer’s hard drive of all private data.
Boy does this make me feel OLD.
