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Minnesota eCycling Program Launched to Teach Businesses and Homeowners 3 R's of Electronics Recycling

Posted on: Monday, 14 May 2007, 15:00 CDT

As Governor Pawlenty signs into law a bill mandating the safe disposal and recycling of electronic waste, MPC, an Eagan-based electronics recycling specialist, this week launches the Minnesota eCycling Program. The program is designed to educate businesses and consumers on how and why electronic waste should be recycled for the good of the environment and to stay in line with the new legislation.

"There's a real education gap," says David Kutoff, CEO, Materials Processing Corporation (MPC). "Businesses and homeowners have realized that now you can't just throw an old computer into the trash and hope everything will be alright. But there's still a lack of understanding in terms of what they should do to dispose of their electronic equipment safely. That creates a great deal of confusion -- and inertia."

As companies face the new legal obligation to recycle electronics appropriately, MPC and its Minnesota eCycling Program aims to rectify that confusion. The company founded 25 years ago in Eagan, Minnesota offers personalized consulting and 100-percent recycling of electronics to everyone from a consumer, who comes to the company's drop off facility with an old desk top computer, to Fortune 500 clients that may refresh their technology needs every two years.

The company's Minnesota eCycling Program focuses on simplifying the electronics recycling process from start to finish. Specialists in eCycling will explain the restrictions and mandates of the new legislation and assess a business' or consumer's e-waste situation. Then customers are walked through the three R's of e-waste: re-use, remarketing and recycling.

"Nothing ends up in land fill at MPC. But re-use is definitely the best form of recycling," says Todd Schachtman, president, sales. "If a computer can be tested, wiped clean to the highest security standards and then resold at a fraction of its original cost to people who really need it, such as schools, colleges and low income families, that's our ultimate goal."

MPC currently tests, repairs and resells as much of the received inventory as possible. If an entire computer can not be reused, it is stripped down. Memory chips, boards and other components are removed and go into an inventory system for resale locally, nationally and around the world. Everything else from precious metals such as silver, copper, aluminum and gold that are recovered to plastic casing and shrink wrap is recycled. Nothing enters land fill.

"Shrink wrap is sent to Virginia for use in man-made decking products," adds Schachtman. "Plastic casing from computers, televisions and hard drives ends up in a wide variety of products from plastic paint brush handles to flower pots."

For further information on MPC, the company's Minnesota eCycling Program or electronics recycling, visit www.mpc-e.com, call 651-681-8099 or send an email to info@mpc-e.com

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Excellent photography available of computer hardware mountains awaiting recycling.

About MPC (www.mpc-e.com)

MPC is one of the country's leaders in the responsible reclamation, recycling and remarketing of electronics and electronic components. For more than two decades the Eagan, Minnesota based company has helped client companies responsibly dispose of their computer and other technology hardware. The company is certified to the highest ISO and Department of Defense standards and committed to helping the environment by helping companies and individuals deal with the issue of e-waste, the largest single item in the waste stream today. Specialists in recycling and reuse, MPC also offers clients precious metal recovery from computer components, providing the highest known recovery rate in the industry today.

Source: Business Wire

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