Kiwis recycle 966 tonnes of e-waste at eDay

Kiwis recycle 966 tonnes of e-waste at eDay

Over 966 tonnes of old computer equipment and mobile phones were diverted from landfills across the country today in the third national eDay.

The free drive-thru recycling event saw 15,700 carloads of electronic waste (e-waste) dropped off at 38 centres from Kaitaia to Invercargill today with at least another ten areas organising local community e-waste collections in the weeks leading up to eDay. This is an increase on the 946 tonnes collected at last year’s event involving 31 centres across New Zealand.

The annual event, organised by Computer Access New Zealand (CANZ), has seen strong growth since it began in 2007 with 12 centres and this year saw more than 82,700 computer items including monitors, CPUs and printers collected for recycling.

Locally at the Dunedin site at OPR Fullcircle Warehouse, 621 cars disposed of over 36 tonnes of computer waste.

“Thanks to a fantastic crew of volunteers, and so much support from around Dunedin, our eDay ran very successfully! It's brilliant to look at the figures and realise just how much e-waste we have diverted from landfills, and can now be recycled.” - Susan Smirk, Communications Coordinator eDay Dunedin

“Following the success of last year’s event [insert region] residents turned up again in force to support eDay 2009. This result shows that there are still a large number of [insert region] locals who have been looking for an opportunity to get rid of their computer equipment in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Susan

Mike Harte, Director of IT at Otago University, Mayor Peter Chin, and Janet Brady of Sustainable Dunedin City joined the Dunedin eDay collection.

Mr Zwimpfer said e-waste contains many valuable and scarce materials that can be recovered and reused for new products instead of being dumped in landfills.

“As a nation we face a number of environmental challenges and e-waste is one of them. Our surveys have found that Kiwis are aware that dumping e-waste in landfills is not sustainable and eDay provides New Zealand households with an easy and free recycling option,” Mr Zwimpfer said.

Equipment collected on eDay is being transported to Auckland and Dunedin where it will be sorted before being sent to accredited recycling companies in South Korea for recycling. “Our partners use accepted international processes to ensure the safety of workers and maximise recovery of materials. They are able to recover over 95% of the materials in a computer for reuse including precious materials such as copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver,” Mr Zwimpfer said.

eDay 2009 is supported nationally by The Ministry for the Environment, the 2020 Communications Trust and the Ministry of Education which funds Computer Access New Zealand. National transport operator KiwiRail and international e-waste recyclers CRTNZ are national partners again in 2009. Corporate sponsors include Meridian Energy, More FM, Dell, Canon, Printlink, The Laptop Company, Invo, Trade Me and NZICT.

Locally, eDay 2009 is supported by the Dunedin City Council, the Dunedin International Science Festival, OPR Fullcircle, Interwaste, and Earthlight.

Over 100 volunteers assisted in today’s effort removing e-waste from cars, directing traffic and interviewing drivers about their awareness of e-waste issues.

“eDay relies on the generosity of these volunteers who donate their time to help across the country. We’d like to thank them again for their hard work and effort and also our many partners and supporters for making today’s event a success.”

“We look forward to a long term sustainable solution through the implementation of the Government’s Waste Minimisation Act. However until comprehensive e-waste recycling schemes are fully operational and everyone knows how to dispose of unwanted computer equipment we expect eDay will need to be held for a few more years. We have already had interest from some communities who were unable to participate this year and are keen to sign up for 2010,” Mr Zwimpfer concluded.

With the support of Trade Me, collectable computers identified today are being auctioned on a special Trade Me Charity Auction site with all proceeds contributing to the costs of eDay. For more details, visit www.eday.org.nz and select the link from the homepage.

Households and businesses are advised to visit www.eday.org.nz for more information about e-waste and detail on how to dispose of e-waste after eDay.

ENDS