The U.S. Postal Service started a test program yesterday to help get people to recycle their small unwanted electronics. The program offers free envelopes for customers to mail consumer electronics such as cell phones, digital cameras, portable music players and inkjet cartridges for free. These envelopes are sent to a recycling center run by Clover Technology's Group in California for recycling or re-manufacture.

The pilot program has been launched in 10 areas across the country in 1,500 post offices, including the Los Angeles and San Diego area. If the plan is successful, the program could become national as soon as this fall.

Read the USPS press release.

What You Can Do

• Find a place near you to recycle all your unwanted electronics.
• Learn more about California's e-waste problem.

Major League Baseball has team up with the Natural Resources Defense Council to green up their game, writes Jorge Ortiz of USA Today. Among the options MLB is considering: composting food stadium food waste instead of landfilling it and switching to compostable plastic cups.

Read the Article>>

CAW and Zero Waste:

• Learn About Zero Waste

CAW's proposed PVC phase-out bill has made national press, showing up in a widely-distributed AP Story on the goals of the California legislature this year. CAW and Assembly Member Julia Brownley are working towards ending the distribution of consumer packaging made from PVC resin. AB 954, however, was not heard in committee this week and is instead awaiting a new bill number and committee schedule. We should have updated information early next month.

Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in partnership with eleven manufacturers, retailers and cell phone providers, introduced the "Recycle Your Cellphone. It's an Easy Call" public education campaign, aimed at getting consumers to recycle their unwanted phones. The campaign will mostly revovle around public service announcements on how easy it is for consumers to safety discard their unwanted phones for recycling for refurbishment. Claudia Deutsh of the New York Times reports.

By the [EPA's] reckoning, as many as 150 million cellphones are taken out of service each year. The phones contain metals, plastics, glass and chemicals, all of which require energy to mine and make, and many of which could be hazardous if they end up in landfills and leach into the ground. Moreover, many old cellphones still work and can be donated to charities or distributed to poor people.

Read complete article.

California already requires retailers to take back and recycle un-wanted phones through AB 2901 (Pavley), passed in 2004, and enacted in July 2006.

What You Can Do

• Read more about the Cell Phone Takeback and Recycling Act.
• Find a place to recycle your unwanted cell phones.