Communications of the ACM
Sandia Receives National Electronics Reuse/recycling Award
Bernadette Bazen maneuvers a loader with Sandia electronics systems destined for reuse and recycling as Jeff Adams and Doug Vetter review the full list of e-scrap.
Credit: Randy Montoya / Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories was one of eight winners among 137 participating federal government agency sites in the Fiscal Year 2009 Electronics Reuse and Recycling Campaign, spearheaded by the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive (OFEE). Sandia contributed 400,119 pounds of electronics toward a total 15.8 million pounds of electronics reused or recycled government-wide in the reuse and recycling challenge.
This was the second year in a row that Sandia picked up the award in the category of large civilian facilities with more than 2,500 employees. OFEE announced the winners of the campaign earlier this year.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that across the federal government about 10,000 computers are disposed of each week. That prompted the OFEE to challenge federal agencies and their facilities to see who can reuse and recycle the most electronic products.
"Sandia's Pollution Prevention program signed up with the Federal Electronics Challenge in February 2006. One of our stated goals was to recycle 100 percent of Sandia’s excess electronics," says Ralph Wrons, Pollution Prevention (P2) program coordinator.
The P2 program works with the computer support group to track and report the internal reuse of computing equipment and with the Property Reapplication department to designate, accumulate and recycle excess computing equipment that is not reapplied for other purposes. During Sandia's third year of participation in the program, ended Sept. 30, 2009, Sandia reapplied more than 13,000 towers, laptops and monitors, and successfully recycled 124,333 pounds of electronics scrap through permitted electronics scrap recycling facilities.
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