The Open-Market Specialists
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
For Immediate Release:
contact:
Christopher Frasier 603-772-3940
Christian Bidegård +46 8 545 640 33
DATE June 21, 2003
PRESS RELEASE
Portsmouth, NH and Stockholm, Sweden are "GETTING THE LEAD OUT".
Computer Expeditors group to establish global home computer recycling program.
How many computers do you own that have passed by the information highway? Are they stacked in closets, hidden away in the basement, stuffed behind couches or sitting on garage shelves? You haven’t thrown them away because it seems so, well, wasteful? An option will soon exist to deal with those old home and small business Commodores, Data Generals and Tandys.
American Computer Expeditors and its sister company Nordic Computer Expeditors, in conjunction with The Prince of Wales Trust, announced today the international kick-off of our first home computer community collection and recycling program.
The computer you're using contains lead, mercury, cadmium, flame retardants and other toxic materials and is considered hazardous waste when it's thrown away. There are between 300 million to 600 million used computers in the U.S.A and no system in place to safely handle them. Keeping computers and all kinds of consumer electronics out of landfills and incinerators is imperative to protecting our public health and the environment. Even recycling them is difficult because they’re full of toxic materials. Twenty million home personal computers became obsolete in 1998 alone, according to the National Safety Council, a number that will increase to 80 million obsolete PCs per year by 2005. Yet only 3 percent were saved from the landfill.. “We’re bringing ACE’s environmental ethic to bear on a problem no one else is targeting – how to take computer waste out of the world's landfill and use them to create a bridge to the digital divide”, said Christopher Frasier, President of American Computer Expeditors.
Keeping computers out of landfills is the primary goal of the program. Every computer contains 5 to 8 pounds of lead as well as mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals and toxic chemicals. “When a computer is buried in a landfill, we run a high risk of the toxic chemicals contained within it eventually leaching into the groundwater,” said Christian Bidegård, CEO of Nordic Computer Expeditors located in Stockholm Sweden, “This initiative develops the infrastructure necessary to prevent computers, and in this case home computers, from entering the waste stream while directing our societies obsolete technology to regions that have never had access to the computer revolution”.
Resource conservation also fits into the picture. “Ninety percent of the component materials in a computer can be recycled,” added Frasier. “With the rapid obsolescence of computers and components, we’re seeing a significant amount of valuable resources ending up in the landfill.”
The pilot project will consist of at least three one-day computer collection events scattered throughout New England over the next 6 months. “We’ll start in Portsmouth, NH on June 21st, and then work our way through the region,” noted Frasier.
ACE hopes to collect 80,000 pounds of obsolete computer equipment during the program’s 6-month run. “The quantity of material we collect will provide us the opportunity to redirect computer systems to regions of the world that currently have no access to the educational and informational benefits of the internet and the PC. Our goal is to learn how to make home computer recycling work, by calling on our 12 years of experience selling PCs to over 100 countries” stated ACE’s PC sales Manager Tim McCoy.
“If we are to be a leader in the development and production of high tech computer technologies,” said McCoy, “then it is incumbent upon us to also be a leader when those technologies have become obsolete or are no longer needed.”
Computer equipment to be accepted at the first collection event at the ACE Recycling Center will include monitors, CPUs, keyboards, scanners, printers and other computer peripherals. There will be a $5 charge per computer component. These fees will be used to ensure that all hazardous materials will be disposed of in an environmentally correct method.
For additional information on the ACE recycling day or to learn more about E-Waste and bridging the Digital Divide, please visit our website at www.acenh.com or we can be contacted at the numbers listed below:
Christian Bidegård
ACE Europe AB
Fogdevägen 2
183 64 Täby
Sweden USA
Phone +46 8 545 640 33
Cell +46 703 42 20 20
christian@ace-europe.se
Christopher Frasier
American Computer Expeditors
41 Industrial Drive
Exeter, NH 03833
Phone +603.772.3940
Cell + 603.770.1255
chris@acenh.com
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