HP: Over 1B pounds recycled

Vendor aims to recycle another billion pounds of electronics and printer cartridges by 2010

Indicative of the rising interest in hardware recycling, also known as IT asset recovery, HP has announced that its achieved its goal of recycling one billion pounds of hardware six months before the deadline it had set back in 2004. The company now seeks to recycle two billion pounds of gear and printer cartridges — that is, another billion pounds — by 2010.

“Environmental responsibility is good business,” said Mark Hurd, HP chairman and CEO, in a written statement. “We’ve reached the tipping point where the price and performance of IT are no longer compromised by being green, but are now enhanced by it.”

Pat Tiernan, VP of corporate, social, and environmental responsibility at HP, called the two billion pound goal for 2010 “the most aggressive recycling goal in the industry. “We expect to achieve it in three and a half years by expanding our convenient re-use and recycling services worldwide.”

HP currently operates its program in 40 countries around the globe.

“In 2006 alone, HP recycled 164 million pounds of products globally — the equivalent weight of more than 600 jumbo airliners and a 16 percent increase over 2005,” said Tiernan.

Vendors that engage in hardware recycling refurbish and resell systems when possible ha or else mine the products for materials that can be used elsewhere. According to HP, plastics and metals it has recovered have been used to make a range of new products, including auto body parts, clothes hangers, plastic toys, fence posts, serving trays, and roof tiles.