2,000,000 kgs of e-waste recycled in 12 months!

As businesses around Australia are encouraged to adopt environmentally friendly and sustainable work practices with Clean Up Business Day held in late February and Clean Up Australia Day in March, one of Australia’s largest and best known environmental services companies, Veolia Environmental Services(Collex) has confirmed that it has recovered and recycled 2,000,000 kilogrammes of e-waste in the last twelve (12) months.

Veolia is working closely with an increasing number of companies across Australia to ensure that one of the more recent threats to our environment, the hazardous substances contained in many of our modern day “necessities”, including obsolete printers, fax machines, mobile phones and computers, is diverted from landfill and recycled back into the economy in a practical manner.

Clean Up Australia Day founder and Chairman, Ian Kiernan, said that the growing e-waste problem was a major concern and it was important that every business, small or large, make a concerted effort to recycle these potentially dangerous items in the most environmentally friendly manner possible.

“Toxic materials from e-waste, which includes lead and mercury from old computers and batteries, is being sent to landfill at three times the rate of other general or municipal waste and generates damaging greenhouses gases,” Mr. Kiernan said.

Veolia has joined forces with a number of major corporations and institutions, including, Philips, the University of NSW, Konica Minolta, Randwick Council, Kyocera, Hornsby Council and Hewlett Packard to help ensure that the e-waste currently being generated by Australians, does not impact on the environment for future generations.

“As a manufacturer of electronics including medical equipment, lighting and consumer electronics, Philips is uniquely aware of the role we have to play in the safe disposal of our products. Clean-Up Business day gave Philips a great opportunity to assess our work place waste practices and we enjoyed working with Veolia throughout the process to make the activity a real success," said Harry van Dyk, CEO Philips Electronics Australia

Veolia has been a major sponsor of the Clean Up Australia campaign for seven (7) years. In addition to the financial support the company provides for this important community initiative, Veolia continues to look for new initiatives to encourage environmentally friendly business practice. Tony Cade, Veolia Environmental Services Group General Manager – Marketing, stressed the importance the company placed on their role in the community.

“As Australia’s largest provider of environmental services, Veolia is proud to again be a major national sponsor of CUAD in 2007. Our involvement with CUA is underpinned by our commitment to helping to develop and maintain sustainable and environmentally friendly business practice in both our own, and our clients business operations.”