Earth Month in April is a time when companies push their sustainability press releases. Sometimes the announcements are legitimate efforts to change their practices to be less harmful to the Earth. Other times they’rea bunch of greenwash.
To that end, this month my inbox was filled with announcements about new products, partnerships and programs. One that I was intrigued by is Best Buy’sStandalone Haul-Away service，其中公司或其回收合作伙伴捡起电子废物。
通过近200美元的一次性服务，该公司将乘坐客户的家，最多可拿出两种大型产品（例如电视，垫圈和多合一计算机），以及无限数量的较小产品（笔记本电脑，摄影师），游戏机甚至吹风机）。
This program builds on Best Buy’s in-store e-waste collection program and a pick-up pilot that it ran in St. Louis during Earth Month in 2021.
"That test in St. Louis showed us we can do this," said Tim Dunn, Best Buy’s head of environmental sustainability. "We can stand this up on a national level, we can utilize our own existing service to get to customers’ homes, we can utilize our existing recycling services to bring this product back through our supply chain facilities."
The company has a similar program for its corporate customers, fulfilled by its Best Buy for Business teams. That one fits a different customer need and moves large volumes of items. "It includes things like [having] potentially dozens of items that need to be wiped to protect customer data and products that may have been programmed for a certain business use," Dunn said. "We want to have more of a white glove service with our recycling partners in that sense."
对于上下文，电子废物问题非常大。在全球范围内，只有17.4％的电子废物被记录在2019年正式收集和回收。United Nations Global E-waste Monitor report. And the value of all of the e-waste generated that year in addition to the materials that can be harvested from them, such as iron, copper and gold, is570亿美元.
Image via Shutterstock/Damrong Rattanapong
百思买在美国有少数回收合作伙伴，包括摄政技术，URT解决方案和Electronic Recyclers International，该国最大的IT回收和翻新公司。Best Buy与合作伙伴合作指出，自2009年首次建立其回收计划以来，它已经帮助回收了超过20亿磅的电子和电器。
客户可以继续免费将商品带入Best Buy商店，但Dunn表示，新服务的目标是使回收像购买一样容易。
Dunn said one learning from the St. Louis pilot was the importance of customer awareness. "I think that cuts across all of our recycling programs. Recycling is really a game of convenience and awareness and getting to the customer when they're motivated to recycle."
For the expansion of the haul-away service, Best Buy said it trained its store employees to speak eloquently and thoroughly about its recycling programs and services. Additionally, the company’s PR and marketing teams added messaging to its website and social media.
These recycling programs are just part of Best Buy’s approach to addressing the e-waste problem.
邓恩说：“这是关于产品的整个周期，”该公司试图通过询问诸如“您希望电子产品为您做什么？解决吗？”他说，该公司试图确保该产品按照客户希望其运行的方式工作。
Our primary purpose right now is to try to bring this concept of making recycling as easy as it is to buy.
When products are no longer of use to a person, a consumer can take it back to Best Buy through a trade-in program, in which they receive a gift card with the established value of the item, or a recycling program. "And we can find a second life for that product," Dunn said.
当产品交易或回收时，其合作伙伴从中擦除数据（如果适用），请修复或在可能的情况下重新销售。如果该物品不再处于出售状态，他们会确定是否可以保留任何零件并用于维修其他电子产品。而且，如果该产品确实处于寿命末期，则合作伙伴将原材料从设备中列入商品市场。
Dunn pointed to Best Buy’s partnership with HP as an example of a commodity-level use for materials collected from its recycling program. Back in 2018, the companies collaborated by using the plastic from recycled electronics collected by Best Buy to manufacture new HP printers.
Best Buy said it has not set an updated e-waste collection goal after recently hitting 2 billion pounds since 2009. "Our primary purpose right now is to try to bring this concept of making recycling as easy as it is to buy," Dunn said.
