Video: While the press flocked to Samsung’s sexy ultrabooks and dazzling displays (it has its own 55-inch OLED, *drool*) during CES, something no less important went under-reported.

It turns out the company has something to say about its products before and after they leave the factory.

In the YouTube video below, the company offers a glimpse at how it tackles e-waste and electronics recycling. Sure, it’s a polished, PR-soaked affair, but stick with it and you’ll catch several interesting scenes. This includes witnessing something most brands are loathe to do: watch their products get picked apart during the recycling process – in unflattering states of disrepair, mind you.

E-waste in numbers

The video also reveals a couple of interesting tidbits. For instance, in 2011, the Samsung Mobile recycled over a half-million pounds of aluminum and 92,000 pounds of plastic. And together with its recycling partner, Universal Recycling Technologies, the company has recycled 140 million pounds of electronic waste since the inception of its Recycling Direct program.

To top it off, David Steel, executive vice president of strategy for Samsung America, assures us that all of the e-waste that they take in won’t end up getting exported and becoming someone else’s problem.

It’s efforts like these that are helping the electronics maker climb up a lot of green rankings. And frankly, it shows that green business is good business. Kudos!

Watch now.

Sure, you can go to Gazelle.com and get cash for your old electronics, but some folks want instant gratification. For instance, the kind of people that use their local Redbox instead of queuing up a DVD on Netflix.

Enter ecoATM, a startup that makes the automated “eCycling” system of the same name. Since it’s in just 23 locations so far — most of them clustered in Southern California — chances are that the closest one is still a little too far for most people. Luckily, GeekBeat.tv‘s Cali Lewis took the ecoATM for a spin using a shattered iPhone 3GS to show how surprisingly valuable your old gadgets still are.

As you can see in the video below, the process takes a few minutes and is a little more involved than most automated transactions (device diagnostics, drivers license and thumbprint scans), but the results speak for themselves. In this example Cali walks away with $76, minus the $8 she (virtually) gifted to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the many charities you can choose. 

Yay for the added dose of good karma! In addition to reducing e-waste, that is.

Check out the ecoATM in action below. Hopefully the company’s “big plans to expand” means that one show up in your (and my) neck of the woods soon.

Screencap: GeekBeat.tv

How much e-waste does the U.S. government generate? According to General Services Administration (GSA) head Martha Johnson, “By some estimates, the federal government goes through 10,000 computers a week.”

And that’s not the only staggering statistic in this Washington Post/Bloomberg article that examines the steps the GSA and EPA are taking to combat e-waste and boost a U.S. recycling industry that currently employs 30,000 workers and generates $5 billion in revenue each year. This entails the adoption of a third party certification standard that would dictate how the federal government recycles its IT equipment — paving the way for industry at large to follow suit.

The two front runners are E-Stewards (notable for banning the export of e-waste to developing regions) and the business-friendlier Responsible Recycling or R2 certs. For now, be sure to keep an eye on this fight as it could very well end up influencing your business’ IT procurement and recycling policies.

Update: Below you’ll find links to more info on the certs mentioned in this post.

EPA: Certification Programs for Electronics Recyclers
e-Stewards Certification
Responsible Recycling R2

via @ecoATM

Image courtesy of Ulises Jorge, Flickr – CC

Game maker with a message, Molleindustria (NSFW), may have stumbled on a sure-fire way to shine a light on the dark side of the electronics industry: create an iOS app about it and get it banned by Apple.

Long story short, the company created a game called Phone Story based on the unsavory practices surrounding the manufacture and “recycling” of today’s popular gadgets, namely smartphones like the iPhone. The app showcases the mining of conflict minerals; an obvious reference to Foxconn suicides; planned obsolescence and how e-waste blights the developing regions where it’s stripped for their raw components.

Needless to say, Phone Story was banned from the iTunes app store. Officially, the app is in violation of the following rules:

15.2 Apps that depict violence or abuse of children will be rejected

16.1 Apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected

21.1 Apps that include the ability to make donations to recognized charitable organizations must be free

21.2 The collection of donations must be done via a web site in Safari or an SMS

Even so, it’s obvious that Phone Story hits too close to home. It’s not hard to see why Apple doesn’t want something like Phone Story in its app catalog.

The suicide bit is a touchy subject, to say the least. And it’s an unflattering reminder of how the Apple brand became synonymous with the tragedy. (To be fair, Foxconn contracts with several big electronics and computer companies apart from Apple.) To Apple’s credit, the company put pressure on Foxconn to improve conditions and is one of the backers of rules that aim to purge supply lines of conflict minerals.

Molleindustria says that it is contesting the last two reasons and is exploring tweaks to remedy the other two. For the curious, the app is currently available on the Android platform.

Regarding the cause, if it’s attention Molleindustria wanted, they certainly got it. Just maybe not in the way they intended.

Source: Wired
Image credit: Molleindustria

Earlier today, I featured this story at CIO.com in the Top 10 about the Responsible Electronic Recycling Act, which places explicit restrictions on e-waste, closing loopholes that allows recyclers to pick off the choice parts from discarded electronics and ship off the rest. The hope is to stop the deplorable environmental and health conditions at electronics scavenging sites overseas. It could also help grow the green jobs sector. According to the CIO.com article, many recyclers find they can’t compete against “e-cyclers” that wind up exporting e-waste regardless. Legislation like this could help companies sprout up to fill demand.

Now comes word that Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD) has also introduced legislation that would boost e-waste R&D with the eventual goal of promoting green jobs and attempts to make American companies less dependent on foreign supply chains by pumping greater amounts of recycled minerals back into circulation. Here are some of the details behind the bill, called the Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act, according to a press release issued by congressman’s office.

The bill authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to award grants to reduce the environmental impact of discarded electronic devices and promote the recycling of these devices through R&D projects.

The bill calls for a study on the barriers to recycling of discarded electronic devices.

It also authorizes EPA to award grants to colleges and universities for curriculum development in the areas of recycling electronic devices and enabling environmentally friendly designs.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because a similar bill was introduced in the Senate in 2009 by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) — and cosponsored by Susan Collins (R-ME) — but failed to advance.

Better luck this time?

Image credit: Ulises Jorge CC

The electronics industry’s dirty little secret is about to get more international attention thanks to a U.N. program to monitor where our discarded gadgets end up.

The New York Daily News is reporting that a United Nations program called StEP (Solving the E-Waste Problem) will monitor ports in Asia and West Africa to help pinpoint where a good chunk of the estimated of the United States’ e-waste ends up. You can thank a five-year, $2.5 million EPA grant that was awarded to the UN University’s Institute for Sustainability and Peace for this new push.

The goals, according to StEP, include:

• Characterization of the nature of the flows of used electronics, including routes by which used electronics are leaving the country and an assessment of methodologies that may be used to quantify the amounts;
• Harmonization of international efforts, including research, tracking, data collection, analysis and information sharing;
• Science-based pilot and demonstration projects for e-waste refurbishment and disposal;
• Environmentally sound e-waste management and addressing at borders enforcement issues related to illegal e-waste shipments;
• Fostering international cooperation to ensure highest recycling efficiency and appropriate treatment of critical components in e-waste processed in both developing countries and economies in transition (“Best of Two Worlds” approach).

In recent years, media attention has turned to e-waste as consumers exhibit an insatiable appetite for smartphones, HDTVs, tablets and faster PCs. It wouldn’t be such a problem if our old electronics were recycled properly, but they’re often not. (Here’s a great video from The Story of Stuff that illustrates the issue.) Often, electronics end up dumped in landfills where they leach toxic materials into the ground. Or as parts of Ghana are witnessing, they end up overseas where locals harvest materials under conditions pose a health risk and blight their ecosystems.

Armed with this new funding, StEP can start to shed some light on the murky shipping and export systems that are spreading the e-waste problem. With any luck, effective solutions will present themselves soon thereafter.

Learn more about StEP here.

[via @nydailynews]

Buck Consultants, a subsidiary of Xerox, has released some data on the state of green programs among U.S. businesses.

In its third annual “Greening of the American Workplace” survey for 2010, the firm reports that 69 percent of American businesses have instituted energy-saving and waste- and carbon-reducing programs, up from 53 percent in the prior year. Of those, 78 percent identified cost savings as the leading motivator for hopping on the green bandwagon. It’s a theme that resonates strongly for businesses, especially in tough economic circumstances.

Allison Artnak, a director at Buck Consultants, confirms this, stating, “Nearly six in 10 respondents indicate the recession had no impact on their green workplace initiatives while 19 percent actually expanded green programs during the economic downturn. We attribute this to the belief that going green can be good for business and for the bottom line.”

What do those programs look like?

Paper recycling’s a given, adopted by 97 percent of companies with formal green programs. But technology — Green IT, rather — rates very high as well. Web and/or teleconferencing technologies where adopted by a staggering 95 percent. Light sensors, another techie solution, came in at 75 percent.

Measuring success

American businesses are increasingly keeping tabs on how well their eco-friendly efforts. According to the group, “60 percent of organizations are measuring their cost savings from green programs, up from 39 percent last year – an increase of 54 percent.”

This statistic bodes well for the burgeoning energy management markets. Just today, there have emerged rumblings that Schneider Electric is expanding into commercial-grade energy management with a possible takeover of Tyco. If accurate, this could be a smart move as businesses — American and otherwise — continue to turn to energy savings as a way to improve the bottom line.

And because I’m a sucker for a good infographic, here’s a visual representation of what solutions are saving companies the most coin:

[via TechCrunch]

That’s what iFixit’s CEO, Kyle Wiens, thinks about Apple’s latest attempt to thwart hardware hackers. And it’s hard to disagree with him.

While Apple has made enormous strides in greening its gadget slate, it still falls short on one critical aspect of reducing e-waste: designing repairable electronics. In addition to its penchant for non-user replaceable batteries and seamless, tough-to-crack enclosures, you now can add exotic “pentalobe” screws into the mix.

It appears that Apple is very serious about keeping folks out of the iPhone 4′s internals and has leapfrogged Torx screws, settling on a variety of fastener that will even stymie do-it-yourselfers with extensive tool collections. Wiens explains the situation to Ars Technica:

“[Apple] chose this ‘pentalobe’ fastener specifically because it was new, guaranteeing repair tools would be both rare and expensive,” Wiens explained. He also noted that the screws are only used on the exterior of the device, merely to make it difficult for end users to get inside. “Otherwise,” Wiens said, “Apple would use it throughout each device.”

…”This is terrible for consumers,” Wiens said. “Apple is taking planned obsolescence to the next level.”

You said it!

Oh, and the new screws are also bedeviling new new MacBook Air owners that might want to perform simple upgrades, like installing a higher capacity SSDs, without making a trip to the Genius Bar. Sure, it’s understandable that Apple doesn’t want users to embark on warranty-avoiding activities, but once that Apple Care coverage expires, there’s little harm in letting folks squeeze another year or two out of their gadgets. Locking down your hardware might be good for repeat sales, but it’s one heck of a way to cut a product’s lifecycle absurdly short.

And so, the Apple love/hate relationship continues…

Video: Conceptually, e-waste is a simple concept. Businesses and consumers buy up gadgets that nowadays cost more to repair than re-acquire or upgrade. This causes mountains of toxic-laden trash to pile up in landfills or “recycling” centers overseas. Obviously, not a good thing.

The issue becomes more complex when when you take into account how electronics manufacturers go about designing their products. And let’s not forget the debate over when their responsibilities end: the minute a gadget’s warranty runs out or does it run throughout its entire lifecycle? The Story of Stuff Project’s e-waste video,”The Story of Electronics,” provides a neat, concise look at the issue. Fortunately, some companies are already tackling e-waste, but I think we can all agree that there’s a lot of more to be done.

Visit the “The Story of Electronics” page or watch the video below.

Hat tip to Alan Beazley (@alan_beazley)!

Image credit: The Story of Stuff Project

Since 2008, Dell has been able to reduce product packaging by 18.2 million pounds. For comparison’s sake, that’s the equivalent of “226 fully-loaded 18-wheelers or almost 4,184 small pick-ups,” according to a company statement.

The statistic comes from the company’s latest corporate sustainability report. Dell attributes its success to a “three C’s” strategy, which stands for cube, content and curbside. “Cube” refers to designing packaging with fewer materials and an eye toward efficient shipping; “content” deals with the recycled content of the packaging’s materials; and finally “curbside” governs the recyclability of a PC or laptop’s box.

Kudos! Now, if only Dell would rid itself of that utterly underwhelming, design-by-committee Streak box.