Hewlett Packard introduces a plan to allow consumers to recycle their used equipment.
The service, part of HP's Planet Partners program, will accept the equipment regardless of the manufacturer. The fee will range from $13 to $34. People will be able to purchase the service online at HP's Web site, the company said.
HP will launch the service in Europe on June 1, tailored to individual countries.
IBM began a similar initiativelate last year. The cost of that program is $29.99. Sony Electronics has a no-cost drop-off program that is limited to its own products and to the state of Minnesota. Best Buy will be starting its recycling program this summer. That one also will involve a fee.
HP has its recycling facility in Roseville, Calif., and plans to open a similar recycling site in Nashville, Tenn., in July.
The program will accept a wide range of goods, including PCs of various shapes and sizes, printers, monitors, scanners, PDAs and routers. Pricing will depend on the quantity and type of product being returned. At the low end of the scale would be small personal printers, and at the high end, monitors and large laser printers.
The equipment will first be evaluated to see if it can be reused; functional devices will be donated to charitable organizations or sent through other reuse channels.
The remaining equipment will be recycled, in cooperation with Micro Metallics, a subsidiary of mining company Noranda, to recover as much usable and potentially toxic materials as possible.