EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — State environmental officials say a three-year-old program to encourage electronic waste recycling is picking up steam.
The Department of Environmental Quality tells The Register-Guard (http://bit.ly/p4krjF) that the Oregon E-Cycles program collected 12.2 million pounds of televisions, computers and monitors known as “e-waste” during the first six months of 2011.
That’s up from the 11.9 million pounds of e-waste collected in the first half of last year. Officials say the program collected an additional 18,000 devices.
The recycling program was launched in January 2009 and is financed by electronics manufacturers. State officials say a television, computer and monitor disposal ban that went into effect in 2010 probably has boosted collections of e-waste this year.
