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Greener Technology for Consumer Electronics V: On Recycling

Recycling is another step that companies took to ensure that greener practices could be put in place. Motorola, for one, is one of the companies quite well regarded in the industry for such matters. The company’s recycling program is more comprehensive as well as thorough than most, Al Hajj shares.

Added to that, Motorola has also arranged for its new mobile cordless phones to include an envelope in their packages that will allow consumers to send back their old mobile cordless phones. Consumers are expected to take advantage of the offer for the free recycling privileges it affords. So owners won’t have to worry their heads over with ways on how to recycle their cordless telephones properly. No risk of possible complications or toxic wastes need be mulled over.

Motorola has always been known for its support to the recycling drives held at a considerable number of educational institutions in the U.S.

However, such measures, commendable though they may seem, still does not manage to that successful. Despite free recycling privileges, only 3% of the digital telephones that Motorola manages to sell are returned.

Kyle of the Computer TakeBack Campaign says that the lack of a reliable recycling system is at the root of the matter. Countries, after all, have different recycling rules. This often results into a jumble of recycling efforts that is badly in need of a firm handling. Coordination is crucial and until this is seen to, recycling efforts will still continue to be ineffective as well as chaotic for consumers. It’s a maudlin affair, is what it is.

Kyle suggests then that unless manufacturers will take on the responsibility for taking back their old consumer electronics products like old cordless telephone models and others, in the same manner that Motorola does, disordered recycling efforts will remain. Kyle adds that this also ensures that companies will be motivated, more than ever, to start providing the public with cordless phones that sport recyclable materials.

A number of consumers on this score have already remarked on the fact that this seems like a perfect solution to the problem. This, after all, allows consumer electronics disposal to proceed in the manner it should.

This notion of asking companies to take on the sole responsibility for disposing their products may not be that quite ideal, though. After all, while the ideal, acceptable arrangement asks that both consumers and companies take responsibility, this one absolves consumers from the situation entirely. Thus, while companies do have to own up to their products, they shouldn’t be made to own up for everything. Such positions hardly make for a fair and equal handling of the situation.