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This may just look like a warehouse full of old electronics, but the General Services Administration,
the Environmental Protection Agency and Electronics Recycling Incorporated see something more, “urban mining”.
ERI CEO John Shegerian oversees this urban mining process, which is the recovery of precious and rare earth metals
and other valuable materials from used electronics such as computers, monitors, televisions and cell phones.
GSA and the EPA are partnering with electronics recycling companies, like ERI, in this “urban mining effort”
to encourage e-stewardship and to help stimulate the local economy.
Old electronics are brought to the E-waste facility, torn apart, processed and then reassembled into a new item.
Just as John with ERI shows us with his iPad2.
This aluminum eventually goes through our facility, after it gets recycled, and it goes to ALCOA, our partner, and it ends up on the back of this iPad2.
And that’s what we call, urban mining..
GSA is a big volume buyer of electronics, spending $85 billion on electronics annually, $14 billion of that in IT equipment alone.
This makes GSA’s cradle to grave approach, to buy green and recycle green, imperative..
Sue Damour, the GSA Rocky Mountain Regional Administrator, explains that e-waste recycling is key.
to helping GSA work toward it’s goal of becoming a Zero Environmental Footprint agency..
The Federal Government in our mind, leads by example and this is the perfect way to do it.
And we want to support job growth, not only here in Colorado, but in the other locations that ERI has in the high tech economy as we move into the future.
Jim Martin from the EPA also shares enthusiasm about urban mining and the opportunity to create green jobs that will have a positive economic impact.
This graph shows you another great reason for doing this, we can create jobs,
we can create good jobs for all kinds of people. Long-term permanent jobs, recycling, reusing and replacing our electronics.
A beacon of hope in a down economy.
Colorado has been a mining state for more than 150 years, and I think, Jim martin, with EPA will agree with me
this is the best mining we have ever done.