Albuquerque Recycling, Inc. - E-waste Facts and Figures

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3726 Hawkins St. NE

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87109

Phone: (505) 990-3732

E-waste Facts and Figures

E-Waste Facts and Figures

E-Waste	Total disposed**	Trashed	Recycled	Rate Recycled
Products	(million of units)	(million of units)	(million of units)	(by weight)

Televisions	26.9	20.6	6.3	18%

Computer Products*	205.5	157.3	48.2	18%

Cell Phones	140.3	126.3	14	10%

Source: EPA

*Computer products include CPUs, monitors, notebooks, keyboards, mice and "hard copy peripherals", which are printers, copiers, multi's and faxes.
**These totals don't include products that are no longer used, but stored.

41.1 million desktops & laptops	The EPA (in report summarized above) estimates that 29.9 million desktops and 12 million laptops were discarded in 2007. That's over 112,000 computers discarded per day.

31.9 million computer monitors	The EPA report (above) estimates that 31.9 computer monitors were discarded in 2007 - both flat panel and CRTs.

Over 3 million tons of e-waste disposed in 2008 in USA	In 2008, we generated 3.16 million tons of e-waste in the U.S. Of this amount, only 430,000 tons or 13.6% was recycled, according to the EPA. The rest was trashed in landfills or incinerators. (The total generated increased from 3.01 million tons of e-waste generated in 2007, but the recovery rate stayed at 13.6%.²

E-waste is still the fastest growing municipal waste stream in the US	The category of "selected consumer electronic products" grew by almost 5% from 2007 to 2008, from 2.84 million tons from 3.01 million tons to 3.16 million tons.³
	While it's not a large part of the waste stream, e-waste shows a higher growth rate than any other category of municipal waste in the EPA's report.
	Overall, between 2007 and 2008, total volumes of municipal waste decreased, while e-waste volumes continue to increase.

Only 13.6% of disposed e-waste was recycled in 2007 and 2008	Only 13.6% of the consumer electronic products generated into the municipal waste stream (meaning, that people tossed out) were "recovered" for recycling in 2008. This compares to the overall recovery rate of all categories of municipal waste was 33.2% in 2008. A total of 430,000 tons of electronics were recovered in 2008.⁴

Consumers:	How Much Electronic Waste Gets Stored or Stockpiled?
68% of consumers stockpile	"68 percent of consumers stockpile used or unwanted computer equipment in their homes."⁵

235 million units in storage as of 2007, including 99 million TVs	The EPA estimates the following quantities of electronics were in storage by 2007 (not including cell phones)
	Televisions: 99.1 million
	Desktop computers: 65.7 million
	Desktop monitors: 42.4 million
	Notebook computers: 2.1 million
	Hard copy peripherals: 25.2 million (printers, copiers, faxes, multi's)
	Total: 234.6 million units in storage⁶

Footnotes:
1 - Table	"Electronic Waste Management in the United States, Approach 1 "Table 3.1 EPA530-R-08-009 US Environmental Protection Agency, July 2008. http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/docs/app-1.pdf
2 - Municipal Waste	"Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2008." United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste (EPA-530-F-009-021, November 2009. Data is from Characterization Data Tables 12 - 14, beginning on page 14: http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2008data.pdf
3 - Municipal Solid Waste	"Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2008," United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste, November 2009. Data is from Characterization Data Tables 12-14.
4 - Table	Ibid. Table 13. Note: See page 33 of report for definitions of generation and recovery.
5 - HP FACT SHEET	HP Fact Sheet, Earth Day 2005. http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/environment/earthday-fs.pdf
6 - Electronic Waste	"Electronic Waste Management in the United States, Approach 1 "Table3.1 EPA530-R-08-009 US Environmental Protection Agency, July 2008, Table 3.4 on page 25. http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials,ecycling/docs/app-1.pdf

Do Your Part

Protecting our environment is everyone's responsibility. We here at Albuquerque Recycling, Inc. are doing our part to reuse, reclaim, recycle, re-invent, re-educate, remind and re-value priorties to promote best practices for end-of-life asset management.

Do your part and recycle your electronics responsibly with us.