Eight more states covered under vendor-led tech recycling initiative

During November, recycling services company MRM (aka the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company) will extend the scope of its technology recycling effort to cover California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsyvlania and Wisconsin. MRM currently supports Minnesota and Texas, and it plans to eventually expand its footprint into all 50 states. (More details on that at the end of January.)

The MRM services organize the handling of e-waste such as televisions, monitors, computers and other electronics gadgets. The Web site provides information about the various regulations that are cropping up across the United States (because most states have a different approach to this). The actual recycling services offered by MRM are handled by CRT-Processing and ECO-International. You'll be able to research locations on the MRM Web site come Nov. 1.

MRM's program is actually a joint venture backed by Panasonic Corp. of North America, Sharp Electronics Corp. and Toshiba America Consumer Products. Panasonic, as an example, has just launched a new recycling program that will allow consumers to drop off Panasonic-branded TVs and other stuff at more than 160 locations in the 10 states covered by MRM. To give you a sense of how important recycling will become for the high-tech companies, Panasonic has actually just designated a new Recycling Office group and designated a new executive oversight role, Recycling Group Manager.