Chris Hughes strolled through Nebraska Furniture Mart with his wife one day recently when a white ATM-like machine caught his eye.
After a sales representative explained that the machine collects old cell phones and issues NFM gift cards with their resale or recycling value, the Omaha couple returned the next day with four mobile phones.
“We basically got 22 bucks for cleaning out the junk drawer,” Hughes said.
“It really was easy and convenient,” said his wife, Alaina.
Nebraska Furniture Mart is the first store in the nation to test the EcoATM, a machine that collects old cell phones for reuse or recycling.
EcoATM, the San Diego company that makes the machines, started testing it at the store on Sept. 21. The trial concludes Oct. 21. The company will use findings from the pilot program to finalize the process and product. The machine is expected to return to the Mart early next year as part of a national rollout.
For now, EcoATM sales representatives have been walking customers through the process, because the hardware is still under development in California. The machine in the national rollout will be fully automated, so no staff will be needed, unless retailers choose to assign someone.
In the final, fully automated version of the machine, sophisticated cameras and computers will identify a phone's brand and model and then grade it based on its age and condition. A customer with a phone in poor condition currently earns $4; fair condition, $23; good, $29; and perfect, $33 — all in gift cards.
The company will update its pricing monthly, or as new cell phone models are introduced to the market, said Ahron Duben, EcoATM's business development manager.
EcoATM sells the phones it collects to facilities that repair and refurbish them or to companies that recycle materials extracted from them, said Michael Librizzi, founder and chief operating officer.
“Those phones that have a value are resold,” he said. “Ones that have no value are recycled.”
Those sets that are repaired and refurbished are sold to cell phone service providers and to other wholesale providers, he said. The recycling companies grind up the phones and extract materials such as lead, gold, copper, arsenic and silver.
People shouldn't throw mobile phones or any other electronics into the trash because they can contain, for example, lead that can leach into the water table and become an environmental hazard, Librizzi said.
Company officials see the machine fulfilling an unmet need: People increasingly want to recycle electronics but find that it's difficult and inconvenient.
Research by the Consumer Electronics Association, a Washington D.C.,-based trade group, found that 87 percent of consumers think recycling electronics is an important or a very important responsibility, a nine-point increase since 2005.
Cell phones are one of the top-selling electronic devices, with an expected 144 million units shipped in 2008, according to the association. They also top the list of products removed from homes in the greatest numbers.
Association spokeswoman Jennifer Bemisderfer said consumer electronics manufacturers, retailers and independent recycling companies have offered recycling programs for several years, but making them easily accessible and convenient remains a challenge.
“So that's why programs like this are exciting,” she said.
Other programs issue gift cards or cash to people who mail in products, but the EcoATM sounds unique, she said. “I haven't seen anything that does it quite that way, in terms of the real-time, on-the-spot evaluation and the gift card.”
Most of the phones brought to the EcoATM during the trial have been in good condition, but a “good” phone that is an older make and model might not net the full $29 because it is no longer in demand.
Even so, customers who get less money or nothing still seem to like that they at least aren't tossing the cell phone in a landfill, Duben said.
The company also offers another feel-good incentive, he said. “Every phone that somebody brings to us, regardless of condition, we plant a tree.”
Mart shopper Jason Hindley of Omaha said last week that he wished he'd known about the EcoATM earlier. He cleaned out his toolbox and discovered a Motorola RAZR V3c whose screen no longer worked.
“I just tossed it out,” he said.
He liked the idea of the EcoATM, even after Duben estimated that the damaged Motorola would have earned only a $1 gift card.
“A lot of people are like me,” Hindley said. “They want to recycle, but they don't want to pay for it to be recycled.”
In June 2008, the Mart teamed up with Sony Electronics to offer a free, two-day electronics drop-off that filled more than a dozen semitrailers, said Jay Buchanan, NFM's electronics division director.
“That was the wake-up call that said, ‘Yes, there is huge demand (for recycling),'” Buchanan said.
The Mart followed by initiating two electronics recycling programs.
One directs customers to the Mart's Web site, where they can determine if their product has value for reselling or recycling. If it does, they are issued a shipping label and a check, minus the shipping charge.
Another program offers free recycling of up to three products when a customer purchases an electronic item costing $199 or more.
EcoATM asked NFM last spring about being host for the trial because of its reputation for progressive recycling efforts, as well as its clean, well-lit and well-laid-out stores, Duben said.
Buchanan said NFM was interested in participating because it fit with the Mart's other electronics recycling options, as the Mart tries to differentiate itself from competitors. The Mart is positioning itself as a cradle-to-grave operation, meaning it wants customers to see it as a place to buy products and services that go along with those products during their life cycle and, now, a place where you can bring them at the end of that life cycle.
Bob Batt, NFM vice president, said the Mart accepted the invitation because EcoATM fits the Mart's strategy of being more eco-friendly and of listening to customers.
“Green initiatives are not only good business, but they are the right thing to do,” Batt said.
Contact the writer:
444-1183, christine.laue@owh.com
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