| Old as New: Fixing E-Waste Instead of Scrapping It
Today, EnvironCom fixes about 15 percent of the products it handles, and aims to resell 30 percent of large appliances by the end of 2014, says Feeney. 5 million. "Reuse is certainly a growth area" for recyclers, though it is currently small, says Phil Conran, a director at consulting firm 360 Environmental near Leicester in central England. In January the European Parliament endorsed raising the target of e-waste to be collected and recycled or reused to 85 percent by 2020, from 20 % now. He credits the reuse business with the turnaround and says the company expects £22 million in revenue in 2012. government in March estimated almost a quarter of all of the electronic items discarded at municipal recycling centers could be repaired, with an annual resale value of £200 million ($323 million). over the next 18 months. Feeney says EnvironCom can make more profit fixing and reselling refrigerators than breaking them down into parts, even though it takes an engineer about an hour to fix up one refrigerator, while the company's plant in Grantham can take apart 100 of them in the same time. Feeney says after the fire it lost money every year until 2011, when it turned a profit on revenue of £13. K. S. EnvironCom's motivation is as much about profits as it is about environmentalism. EnvironCom "is a good source of refurbished stock" that complements the donated items, says Mike Lucas, head of retail at the BHF, which has 144 stores selling preowned consumer electronics. |
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Old as New: Fixing E-Waste Instead of Scrapping It
