Kiwis recycle 966 tonnes of e-waste at eDay

DATE: 12 SEPTEMBER 2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kiwis recycle 966 tonnes of e-waste at eDay

More than 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, 691 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.

At Bay of Plenty collections in Rotorua, Tauranga and Whakatane, 1755 cars disposed of more than 91 tonnes of computer waste.

“Following the success of last year’s collections, Bay of Plenty residents turned up again in force to support eDay 2009. This result shows that there are still a large number of Bay of Plenty locals who have been looking for an opportunity to get rid of their computer equipment in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Environment Bay of Plenty Chairman John Cronin, who volunteered at the Tauranga event.

Members of Parliament Simon Bridges and Todd McClay, Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosby, Western Bay of Plenty District Council Mayor Ross Patterson, and Environment Bay of Plenty Councillor Malcolm Whittaker joined Chairman Cronin as volunteers at eDay collections around the region.

The annual event, organised by Computer Access New Zealand (CANZ), has seen strong growth since it began with just 12 centres in 2007. This year saw more than 82,700 computer items including monitors, CPUs and printers collected for recycling. “e-waste contains many valuable and scarce materials that can be recovered and reused for new products instead of being dumped in landfills,” said National organiser and Chairperson of CANZ, Laurence Zwimpfer.

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,”said Mr Zwimpfer.

More than 1,500 volunteers assisted in today’s effort removing e-waste from cars, directing traffic and interviewing drivers about their awareness of e-waste issues around New Zealand. “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, 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.

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