It's time to get rid of your ancient bulky televisions, printers and VCRs, and get newer, more space-efficient gadgets. But what do you do with your old gadgets? Ideally, you would be able to bring them back to the store where you bought them and drop them off to be recycled, but as a new report card shows, there aren't very many retailers in the nation that make that possible or convenient.
According to a report released today by the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, nine of the nation's top 16 electronics retailers failed the recycling test, which graded the companies' recycling programs based on 20 criteria including convenience, transparency, collection volumes and responsible recycling. Only Staples, Best Buy and Office Depot were deemed to have effective recycling programs, leading the race ahead of other companies with their policy to take back all or most categories of electronic products and making that process easy for consumers.
"But there is a much bigger number of disappointing laggards," said National Coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition Barbara Kyle, "who are selling us billions of dollars of electronics each year and are doing nothing to help consumers recycle them later."
These "disappointing laggards" include retail giants Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Sears, who failed because they either have no recycling program, or take back only one item.
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