EPA Recognizes Electronics Industry Leaders For Diverting 176,494 Tons Of Electronic Products From Landfills, Reducing Environmental Impacts Across The Country And Helping To Address Climate Change

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announces the 2020 winners of the Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Electronics Challenge Awards. The SMM Challenge encourages electronics manufacturers, brand owners, and retailers to send 100 percent of the used electronics they collect to third-party certified electronics refurbishers and recyclers. The 2020 award winners reused or recycled 176,494 tons of electronics and avoided the equivalent of nearly 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

“The innovation and environmental leadership shown by these companies is outstanding,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “The Electronics Challenge award winners are corporate role models creating new products that show environmental improvement can go hand-in-hand with other technological advances. EPA encourages others to follow their lead by implementing similar innovative approaches.”

The use of electronic products has grown exponentially over the past two decades, changing the way people communicate and more recently, how they stay in touch during the pandemic. Reusing and recycling reduces environmental impacts, including those from climate change, throughout the life cycle of electronics, while also creating green jobs.

Since 2012, EPA has been recognizing leading electronics manufacturers, brand owners, and retailers for their significant contributions in electronics sustainability as part of the SMM Electronics Challenge. This year the Agency is honoring three categories of winners with its Gold Tier Awards, Champion Awards, and a Special Award for participants who made significant contributions during the pandemic.

Gold Tier Award

EPA’s Gold Tier Award is presented to organizations with exemplary electronics collection and recycling programs. The 2020 recipients of this award are:

• Dell Technologies (Round Rock, TX)
• LG Electronics USA, Inc. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ)
• Samsung Electronics (Montville, NJ)
• Sony Electronics Inc. (San Diego, CA)
• Staples (Framingham, MA)
• TCL North America (Corona, CA)
• T-Mobile (Bellevue, WA)
• VIZIO, Inc. (Irvine, CA)
• Xerox Corporation (Webster, NY)

Champion Award
EPA’s Champion Award recognizes industry leaders in demonstrating environmental, social, and economic outcomes that go above and beyond the requirements of the Electronics Challenge. These participants are leading the charge to improve sustainability of their products and incorporate recycled and renewable materials in their packaging. The 2020 recipients of this award are:

• Dell Technologies – For developing the Dell Latitude 7300 25th Anniversary laptop with sustainability features, such as using 25 percent discarded plastics and 75 percent high density polyethylene plastics in the packaging tray.
• Samsung Electronics – For using materials with fewer environmental impacts for the Galaxy S10’s packaging, including introducing its first plastic-free packaging design.

Special Award for Sustainability Practices During a Pandemic
This year EPA is also recognizing significant achievements of the last year through a Special Award to those Challenge participants that continued electronics sustainability practices during a pandemic by creating safe ways to keep products from building up in homes and by supporting underserved communities with computers.

• TCL North America – For holding free electronics collection events to ensure proper recycling and reuse during the pandemic.
• Dell Technologies – For donating refurbished laptops to help pilot educational initiatives.

For more information on the 2020 SMM Electronics Challenge award winners: https://www.epa.gov/smm-electronics/sustainable-materials-management-smm-electronics-challenge-recognition-and-awards

For more information on EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management of electronics program:
http://www.epa.gov/smm-electronics

For information on where consumers can donate or recycle electronics:
http://www.epa.gov/recycle/electronics-donation-and-recycling

For information about EPA’s National Recycling Goal: https://www.epa.gov/americarecycles/us-national-recycling-goal