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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.