Goodwill Talks to Congress About E-Waste

by 05/01/08 3 Comments

Goodwill stores took in 23 million pounds of electronics in 2004 alone, and estimates that 30 percent of them were unusable.

As a result, Goodwill Industries met with the House Committee on Science and Technology to address the challenges facing nonprofit organizations that accept donated televisions, computers and other electronics.

Goodwill wants federal government action with three items:

  1. Development of a sustainable electronics recycling/reuse infrastructure
  2. Incentives to manufacturers for product design changes that promote reuse
  3. Tax credits for manufacturers who partner with social agencies

The primary goal of Goodwill agencies is to refurbished and resell electronics. If this isn’t an option, Goodwill must take on the costs of responsible disposal.

If you know that your electronic device is not in working condition, find out where to recycle it using Earth 911′s recycling locator instead of donating it for reuse.

Trey Granger

Trey Granger

Trey Granger is a staff member at Earth911.com.


As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.

3 Archived Comments

  1. aiwahp

    posted on May 5th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    This is a great post,it is very nice idea,this would be very sustainable in our society. I’m very thankful that this group help to protect our environment,in our world that we live in . This mission will give a lot of good effect in our society ,to all people,or even in the whole world.
    thanks for helping saving our mother Earth.
    God bless and more power.
    __________________________
    ai2
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  2. teresam

    posted on May 6th, 2008 at 7:12 pm

    Goodwill employees have told me their prices have gotten so high because of their big garbage pick up expense. I don’t think Goodwill should be charged any garbage pick up fee because all that stuff would have been picked up for no extra charge at the homes they came from, if they hadn’t been taken to Goodwill.

  3. earth 911

    posted on May 9th, 2008 at 7:40 am

    [...] met with the House Committee on Science and Technology to address the challenges facing nonprohttp://earth911.com/blog/2008/05/01/goodwill-talks-to-congress-about-e-waste/Fast-talking: Hirsch, Ricci share thoughts on `Speed Racer’ AP via Yahoo! News “Speed Racer” stars [...]

  4. Jack

    posted on September 24th, 2008 at 4:07 am

    <strong>refurbished computers…</strong>

    Six Apart started a working group in February 2006 to improve the Trackback protocol with the goal to eventually have it approved as…

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