A number of electronics industry leaders have received formal recognition from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the EPA’s 2018 Sustainable Materials Management Electronics Challenge Awards. Of the companies honored by the EPA for sustainably designing products and processes while also diverting electronics from landfills, many were able to achieve their sustainability goals while working with ERI, the nation’s leading fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company.
Best Buy, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony, Staples, and VIZIO, all of whom work with ERI, received Sustainable Materials Management Electronics Challenge Awards from the EPA.
Electronics Challenge participants kept nearly 276,000 tons of electronics from being sent to landfills by sending them to third-party certified recyclers. This is equivalent to saving the energy used by nearly 100,000 homes for one year.
Best Buy is also receiving the “Champion Cutting-Edge Award” for its Teen Tech Centers project. In partnership with ERI, these centers increase Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) education by encouraging youth through the reuse of older electronics to explore technology through training in coding, digital music and film production photography, 3D design, and other STEM related disciplines.
“We are extremely proud to partner with our friends and colleagues at these outstanding electronics industry leaders to help them reach and exceed the top standards of sustainability,” said John Shegerian, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of ERI. “All of these trailblazing companies are genuinely setting new standards for the industry on a global level — and it is hugely rewarding for ERI to be playing a role in that.”
“The participants in the Electronics Challenge saved roughly 276,000 tons of electronics from going to landfills,” said EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a press release. “The commitment of these companies to sustainable management of electronics proves that innovative business practices and environmental stewardship can go hand-in-hand.”