by Brianna Crandall — July 25, 2011—The administrators of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, along with the CEOs of Dell Inc. and Sprint, and senior executives from Sony Electronics released on July 20 the Obama Administration’s “National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship,” a strategy for the responsible electronic design, purchasing, management and recycling that will promote the burgeoning electronics recycling market and jobs of the future across the United States.
The announcement includes the first voluntary commitments made by Dell, Sprint and Sony to EPA’s industry partnership aimed at promoting environmentally sound management of used electronics. The Administration’s strategy also commits the federal government to take specific actions that will encourage the more environmentally friendly design of electronic products, promote recycling of used or discarded electronics, and advance a domestic market for electronics recycling that will protect public health and create jobs.
Under the new strategy, GSA will remove products that do not comply with comprehensive and robust energy efficiency or environmental performance standards from its information technology purchase contracts used by federal agencies, and will ensure that all electronics used by the federal government are reused or recycled properly. In addition, EPA and GSA will promote development of new environmental performance standards for categories of electronic products not covered by current standards. Several federal agencies will work together in an E-Waste Task Force to identify methods for tracking used electronics in federal agencies to move toward reuse and recycling.
A key component of this strategy includes the use of certified recyclers and increasing safe and effective management and handling of used electronics in the United States, and working with industry in a collaborative manner to achieve that goal. As a first step in this effort, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson signed a voluntary commitment with Dell CEO Michael Dell and Sprint CEO Dan Hesse to promote a U.S.-based electronics recycling market. Sony Electronics representatives were also present, and also committed to improving the safe management of used electronics.
