The most wonderful time of the year can often be one of the most wasteful as well. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)1, household waste increases more than 25 percent from Thanksgivingto New Year's Day. Despite all the excess, almost three quarters of Americans (74 percent) plan to do something this season to reduce their waste, according to a survey from ecoATM, the nationwide network of device recycling kiosks. In addition to not wrapping gifts and reusing wrapping paper, gift bags and ribbons from previous holidays, 17 percent plan to use newspaper or other recycled paper to wrap gifts.
Some truly take these waste-cutting measures to heart, with eight percent of respondents not planning to fill any bags of trash with holiday excess: wrapping paper, ribbon, gift bags and product packaging. Nineteen percent are on the opposite end of the spectrum – saying they fill four or more bags, contributing to the additional one million tons of waste a week in U.S. landfills during the holidays, as reported by the EPA.
In addition to gift wrapping and ribbon waste, the holidays can also be a time when e-waste increases as many consumers unwrap new gadgets. According to the National Retail Federation2, 30 percent of consumers plan to buy electronic items as gifts this holiday, adding to the growing number of discarded devices.
"ecoATM is a solution for e-waste this holiday season and into the new year," said Maria Stipp, president of ecoATM. "After opening new gadgets this holiday, consumers can bring their old gadgets to an ecoATM kiosk for instant cash, and the assurance that hazardous materials will not end up in landfills."
ecoATM has collected more than three million devices (tablets, MP3 players and cell phones) since 2010, and is able to find a second life for the majority of those devices. For the remaining devices, ecoATM partners with certified eWaste reclamation facilities to ensure those materials are responsibly reused and recycled.
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