TAKE THIS PRODUCT BACK AND RECYCLE IT!

In Business, November-December, 2006, Vol. 28, No. 6, p. 12

Producer takeback initiatives are gaining momentum among some U.S. corporations, especially those with products that can negatively impact the environment if disposed.

Jennifer Weeks

WHAT DO carpets, computers, and mechanical thermostats have in common? Like millions of other manufactured products, they typically get thrown away or left in storage when their useful lives are over. But several companies that make these items are among the select group of U.S. businesses that take their products back for recycling or safe disposal. Their motives and methods vary, but all of these initiatives highlight some of the challenges for producers that offer takeback services.
While the European Union has adopted multiple laws over the past decade that make various industries responsible for their used products, producer takeback programs in the United States remain scattered and largely voluntary. “It's spotty,” says Scott Cassell, Executive Director of the Boston-based Product Stewardship Institute (PSI). “Some companies have set up extensive takeback programs, while others in the same industries are still under pressure to take greater responsibility. Some retailers take back either the specific brands that they carry or the type of products they sell, regardless of who manufactured them. Programs vary enormously from industry to industry.”
Liability for the impact of hazardous components has been a strong driver for existing U.S. takeback initiatives, most notably programs to recycle batteries and devices that contain mercury such as thermostats, fluorescent lamps and silent wall switches. Similar concerns about toxic materials are fueling grassroots campaigns to reduce the fast-growing stream of electronic waste or “E-waste” - used computers, monitors, printers, televisions and other high-tech goods.
On the positive side, offering takeback services can help companies attract new customers or solidify the loyalty of existing ones. Taking back used products for recycling demonstrates that businesses have strong environmental values and are working to reduce their corporate environmental footprints. It also lets clients avoid the uncertainties and logistical headaches of storing or disposing of used goods themselves - a benefit that may become more compelling as some states tighten recycling and waste disposal laws and ban hazardous products from landfills.
Little momentum exists for passing broad extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws at the national level. But many state and local governments are strong EPR proponents, working individually or through coalitions such as the Northwest Product Stewardship Council, a regional alliance of government agencies. Regulators also work together with PSI and other nongovernmental organizations such as the Product Policy Institute in Athens, Georgia to develop, promote and refine product stewardship initiatives.
E-waste is perhaps the biggest driver for state and local product stewardship legislation. Since early 2005, California, Maryland, Maine and Washington have passed laws that mandate electronics recycling and create financing mechanisms to support it. Electronics recycling bills were introduced in at least 10 other states in 2006, and the New York City Council is considering E-waste recycling legislation as a follow-up to the city's solid waste management plan adopted in July.

MERCURY THERMOSTATS: THERMOSTAT RECYCLING CORPORATION
Many common building components, such as lamps and wall switches, contain small quantities of mercury. On average, a typical mechanical thermostat contains three to four grams of mercury in a tilt switch that activates heating and cooling equipment. As of 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that mercury thermostats in the United States held some 230 tons of this potent neurotoxin.
After Minnesota banned disposal of mercury thermostats in 1992, Honeywell, the largest manufacturer, established takeback programs targeted to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) contractors, homeowners and other customers. In 1998, two other major producers, General Electric and White Rodgers, joined Honeywell to set up the Thermostat Recycling Corporation (TRC), one of the first significant U.S. producer takeback initiatives. TRC is housed at the Virginia headquarters of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.
This voluntary, industry-funded program provides containers to thermostat wholesalers and encourages contractors who replace mercury thermostats to drop off the used devices at participating locations. Wholesalers ship the full containers, which contain up to 100 thermostats, to a Honeywell facility for dismantling and mercury recycling. TRC accepts all thermostats recycled by contractors, including those made by smaller manufacturers that do not participate in the program.
TRC has served all states except Alaska and Hawaii since 2001. Through 2005, it had recovered more than 446,000 thermostats containing nearly 4,000 pounds of mercury. More than 1,000 wholesaler stores, roughly 15 to 20 percent of the national total, collect thermostats, and surveys have shown that they find the program easy to carry out. TRC charges wholesalers a one-time $15 fee for the first collection box but pays all transportation and mercury recovery expenses. Costs are shared among the three companies based on how many items of each brand are returned.
TRC is working with the Product Stewardship Institute on a number of initiatives to expand the thermostat recycling program. In May 2006, TRC and PSI launched a pilot program to let consumers recycle thermostats at household hazardous waste dropoff centers in Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Washington. If this program (aimed at do-it-yourselfers who replace their own thermostats) is successful, it may be expanded across the nation. TRC and PSI also are testing the impact of offering financial incentives to contractors who recycle thermostats.
According to TRC executive director Mark Kohorst, the biggest challenge of taking back more mercury thermostats is reaching out effectively to potential customers. “We need help from the states to get information about the program out to the right wholesalers and contractors, and we would like to see more legislators promote the program through laws and regulatory activities,” says Kohorst. “And if other companies joined the corporation, we could do more outreach.”

CARPET AND FLOORING: INTERFACE, INC.
More than five billion pounds of carpet were discarded in the United States in 2005, mostly in landfills. The carpet industry is working to increase diversion of postconsumer carpet under a memorandum of understanding signed by manufacturers, government agencies and nongovernment organizations in 2002. Under this voluntary agreement, which is coordinated by a third-party organization called the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE, www.carpetrecovery.org), manufacturers are encouraged to take responsibility for used carpet and flooring.
Georgia-based Interface, Inc. created its own carpet reclamation program, ReEntry®, in late 1994 as part of company president Ray Anderson's campaign to infuse environmental values into the corporation's mission. For corporate and institutional customers, ReEntry will take carpet from any manufacturer without requiring purchase of a replacement product from Interface. David Whitley, director of sustainable practices with InterfaceFLOR Commercial, estimates that Interface has taken back more than 90 million pounds of material since the program was initiated.
Initially most carpet taken back through ReEntry was sent to waste-to-energy plants, but Interface views this as “downcycling,” or converting waste materials into less valuable products. Instead, the company aims to turn as much reclaimed material as possible into products that are equally or more valuable. In 2005, Interface recycled 71 percent of the 17 million pounds of carpet that it reclaimed from landfills. “Hopefully, we'll be able to do more as time goes on. We're getting closer and closer to a closed loop, which is our goal,” says Whitley.
Interface handles reclaimed carpet via several different pathways depending on the product. Carpet tile in good condition that was manufactured by InterfaceFLOR Commercial or its sister company, Bentley Prince Street, is cleaned and “repurposed” (donated to community charities). Other vinyl-backed products are sorted, with the face fibers being separated from the backing components. The backing components are ground, melted and used as feedstock for Interface's Blue™ backing process that produces GlasBac® RE recycled vinyl tile backing products. All Interface products with GlasBac RE backing have a total recycled content of at least 40 percent.
Cool Blue is a highly controlled, low-energy process that lets Interface FLOR Commercial use a wider range of recycled polymers to produce carpet backing, including reclaimed carpet tile, any renewable or biobased thermoplastics, and other plastic materials. The company estimates the technology has the potential to divert more than 20 million pounds of plastics from landfills annually.
Interface also has an internal process whereby fiber shear waste from new products is collected and sent to a recycler that makes engineered resins for Ford Motor Company for its plastic automotive components. Broadloom carpet, which has a different chemistry, is processed into raw material for car parts, used to make carpet padding and industrial matting, or is sent to a waste-to-energy plant.
Notwithstanding these technical innovations, the ReEntry program faces some low-tech challenges, such as the logistics of handling small quantities of material efficiently and minimizing freight charges for returned carpet. “As we move forward, more entrepreneurs will get into the business and help cut the cost of handling these materials,” says Whitley.
Some potential customers are deterred by the cost of recycling their carpet - wrongly, in Whitley's view, since they would otherwise pay for disposal and landfilling. “We're working to educate people about what's involved in the process and to point out that in some parts of the country, recycling is cheaper than disposition.” After numerous inquiries from residential customers, Interface introduced the R&R (Return and Recycle) program for its FLOR™ residential modular products, sold through www.florcatalog.com. The used carpet tiles are returned to InterfaceFLOR Commercial via UPS, free of charge for the residential customer, and are recycled just like the commercial tile products.

COMPUTERS: DELL
Electronic products, which represent the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. solid waste stream, contain many hazardous components. In the past several years, a number of books and reports have highlighted the importance of end-of-life management for computers and other electronic products by documenting that much of the E-waste shipped abroad for recycling is disassembled by low-paid workers under unsafe conditions. For example, a 2005 Greenpeace analysis of environmental samples from handling sites in India and China found high levels of lead, tin, copper, cadmium, antimony, and other toxic and carcinogenic chemicals. “Both wastes and hazardous chemicals used in the processing [of E-waste] are commonly handled with little regard for the health and safety of the workforce or surrounding communities and with no regard for the environment,” the report stated.
In June 2006, Dell laid claim to the title of best U.S. computer takeback program when it announced that it would provide free recycling of any Dell-branded product for consumers worldwide, regardless of whether or not they bought a replacement product. The company also offers free recycling of any brand of used computer or printer to customers who buy a new Dell computer or printer (a free return kit for the used items ships along with the new goods). Dell has set a cumulative goal of collecting 280 million pounds of used computer equipment by 2009.
“We learned through our program offering free recycling with a purchase that the most important issue for consumers was to make the process easy and affordable. At the same time, Dell has been growing up as a company and learning what it means to be an environmental leader,” says Dell spokeswoman Caroline Dietz in explaining why Dell decided to offer free takeback of its own products at any time.
From Dell's perspective, educating consumers about recycling E-waste is one of the main challenges involved in a successful takeback program. “People tend to keep old equipment in their basements, and often they don't know that it contains environmentally sensitive materials or that there are free recycling opportunities,” says Dietz. Dell promotes computer recycling as a service with many benefits for customers, including environmental compliance, destruction of all data remaining on disks and hard drives, and reduced costs for storing old equipment.
Dell's corporate customers are offered several options for their used equipment. If the CPU in their equipment is more than three years old, Dell will recycle it. If the equipment is newer, customers can choose “value recovery,” in which Dell audits the gear to determine how much can be reclaimed. The company then makes the customer a fixed-price offer, sells the equipment to a third party, and pays the customer the residual value of their used hardware.
Among U.S. computer manufacturers, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Apple offer the most generous takeback programs after Dell. HP takes back used computer equipment for a small fee (currently $13 to $34 depending on the type and quantity of items), and provides electronic coupons to customers who buy new hardware that covers the full cost of recycling their old hardware in most cases. Apple offers free takeback and recycling to customers who buy a new computer or monitor from Apple, and will recycle any of its products without a purchase for $30. (Apple initiated free takeback of its products in 2006, after months of pressure from environmental advocates and just before a shareholder resolution urging the company to improve its recycling policy was to be offered at the company's annual meeting.) Dell, Apple, and HP have all pledged to dismantle used computers in the United States and not to export hazardous materials.
ELIMINATE THE NEGATIVE
Will there come a time with product takeback programs where manufacturers actually realize an economic gain by reusing recovered materials from their own product waste? Perhaps, but not yet, appears to be the bottom line. Generally, these companies look at takeback as a cost of doing business, although Interface is working toward being able to use more of the recovered materials. David Whitley at Interface says that they started doing takeback as a service (it's a cost to Interface) but that the company tries to share costs with customers. “Many customers are interested in doing the right thing as long as it doesn't cost them any more, so we're working to get the cost down,” he notes. “You need to have a demand for the end products, which will increase their value.”
For the most part, though, the drivers are avoiding a negative - as with risks from mercury thermostats disposed of in landfills - or offering customers a service that distinguishes the merchant from competitors - as with safe data destruction and recycling from Dell.

Jennifer Weeks is a Massachusetts writer specializing in energy and environmental issues.

Copyright 2007, The JG Press, Inc.