Cash for cameras: Kodak's latest e-cycling gesture

Imaging technology giant Eastman Kodak Co. has been offering recycling services for single-use cameras for some time, but now it has launched a program to take in all manner of outdated consumer electronics devices from printers to digital still and video cameras. What's more, the company will even take in that old film camera that might be hiding somewhere a drawer or closet. (If you haven't sold it on eBay yet, like I did a few months back when I was looking for a loving home for my old Minolta.)

The initiative, called the Kodak Trade-In and Recycling Program, is being managed by a third party, SMASH DIRECT. If there is still value in the technology you are turning in, you might get some cash back. If there is no resale opportunity for the item, you will be presented with options to recycle it. Among the sorts of things covered are:

• Film cameras including 35-millimeter, medium and large format models
• Digital cameras including point and shoot AND single-lens reflex
• Standard and high-definition digital video cameras
• All manner of lenses, flashes and camera accessories
• Digital picture frames
• Consumer printers

Let's be clear, this technology DOES NOT have to be Kodak technology. You can turn in competitive brands, if you want.

Kodak's overall sustainability program sets out a number of goals for the end of 2012. Since 2002, for example, the company said it has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 49 percent, which is just short of the 50 percent reduction it hopes to achieve by the end of 2012. That's approximately 1.5 million tons of emissions. Perhaps not so strangely, the company has also cut its energy consumption by 49 percent since 2002. Its target is a 50 percent reduction by the 2012 timeframe.