On the heels of SONY and IBM’s electronic products take-back, Best Buy announced that people will, for a small fee, be able to return their unwanted electronic products to selected pilot stores. Starting this summer, the program will be available at 10 stores nationwide. Best Buy is an electronics retailer with 400 retail stores throughout the U.S. Its headquarters are in Minnesota, where SONY’s take-back program is also being piloted.
Individuals will be able to drop off televisions, computer monitors and printers, central processing units, and peripherals, VCRs, telephones, cellular phones, and camcorders. Best Buy is testing the price for handling fees, but they will likely be $10-$25, depending on the item returned. That was the amount Best Buy set during last fall’s pilot program conducted at one store in Minnesota. 22 metric tons of old equipment were returned during the two-day event.
Best Buy plans to hold collection days at least once a year. The company views the program as a way to help build its brand and drive traffic to its stores, in addition to providing a responsible way to deal with the problem of electronic waste.
Meanwhile, state and local government agencies are opening up a “national electronics product stewardship stakeholder dialog” to create a voluntary industry take-back program for electronic products. The first meeting was by invitation-only last month in Washington, DC. Gary Davis from the Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies at the University of Tennessee is facilitator. Scott Cassel, director of the new Product Stewardship Institute at the University of Massachusetts, is coordinating the 11 state agencies that have joined the
initiative. The U.S. EPA is sponsoring the six meetings slated for the coming year.
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