Minnesota’s Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Managing Electronic Products at End-Of-Life

IEEE White Paper PDF - 400K

This description of the "Plug Into Recycling" project was published in the proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment (May 8-10, 2000) in San Francisco, California. The symposium was sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

This white paper is a summary of the recycling demonstration project for removing used electronic products from municipal waste in Minnesota. It presents the results of this effort as of January 2000.

The final report (87 pages) is available for download in PDF format. (July 2001)

Background

The Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance (OEA) sought private sector participation in the project to achieve optimal planning, scope and results from the effort, and to ensure private sector participation in identifying how best to capture and recycle used electronic products from residents.

A partnership ensued among Sony Electronics Inc., Waste Management-Asset Recovery Group (WM-ARG), Panasonic-Matsushita and the American Plastics Council. Each of these partners pledged a minimum of $25,000 to the project. Initial planning for the project began in the fall of 1998.

In early 1999, the OEA issued a Request for Participation to identify potential collection sites. The selected site hosts conducted collections between July 31 and October 31, 1999. WM-ARG transported used products from the collection sites or regional storage depots to a central processing facility where the company completed processing in January 2000.

The project partners attempted to draw on the collective experience of previously reported data from used electronics collection programs. These efforts included those by Hennepin County, Minnesota, and those reported by the Common Sense Initiative (CSI) of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA).