With Digital TV Conversion Coming, Panasonic Paves Way For Recycling

Tag : electronic tube
Michael Kanellos With Digital TV Conversion Coming, Panasonic Paves Way forRecycling October 30, 2008 at 3:09 PM
If you’ve got an old TV with a Panasonic logo, it’sgoing to be easier to get rid of it soon.
The Japanese electronics giant will open up 160 drop-off locationsin 10 states over the weekend where consumers can get rid of oldTVs, cameras and other electronic doodads made by the company.There’s no charge.
The recycling center is being run in conjunction with ElectronicManufacturers Recycling Management Company (which goes by theabbreviated acronym MRM), a joint venture launched in 2007 withPanasonic, Sharp and Toshiba.
Electronic recycling has become mandatory in a few states likeMinnesota and California and will soon be mandatory in severalothers. These programs, though, can be confusing — who shouldpay for them? where does the trash go? who gets to resell the wastemetals? — which has limited their effectiveness. Anotherproblem: how to get rid of the stuff. In Europe, somethingthat’s thrown out that contains an electric plug isclassified as toxic waste; thus, you can’t just throw it inthe recycling bin.
Stations like this help grease the wheels. And in the next severalmonths, there will be a lot of TVs going to the shredder. Roughly80 million analog TVs will get heaved out in 2008 and 2009, JohnShegerian, CEO of Electronic Recyclers (ER), one of the largeste-waste recyclers in the U.S., told me a while back. The glass inan old tube TV consists of about 22 percent lead.
Even without the digital TV mandate (which kicks in on February 17,2009), the e-recycling business is booming. Roughly 65 millionpounds of e-waste was recycled in 2005 in California alone afterthe state passed a recycling law and the figure shot up to 120million pounds in 2006. More than 200 million pounds was hashed in2007.
Panasonic, like a lot of Japanese companies, has set severalambitious goals for reducing its own carbon footprint andincreasing the greenness of its products. Many are reducing thepower consumption of plasma and LCD TVs . Panasonic also makes green homes , but not in the U.S.
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