BANGALORE, INDIA: Local communities from nine countries spanning five continents, joined Sims Recycling Solutions to celebrate Earth Day, by taking part in the world’s first ever international e-waste collection event.
Joining the one billion people around the globe already taking part in Earth Day activities, over 2000 people participated. They cleared unwanted or broken items of electrical and electronic equipment out of their sheds, lofts, cupboards and garages and brought them along to Sims’ electronics recycling facilities, to be responsibly recycled, completely free of charge.
The events took place over Earth Day weekend at the company’s electronics waste recycling facilities in North America, Austria, Belgium, Germany, India, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden and the UK with a total of 225.4 tonnes of e-waste collected and diverted from landfill.
The purpose of the Earth Day collection events was to promote awareness of the need to recycle redundant electrical and electronic equipment.
Sims Recycling Solutions’ Global CEO, Graham Davy, said ''Our Earth Day message is very simple. We urgently need to start retrieving a lot more of the finite resources of materials - such as precious metals - which are contained in electronics waste, than we are doing at present. By doing this, we can re-use these resources and protect the environment from the harmful emissions which arise from mining virgin metal ore or unnecessarily manufacturing new supplies of materials such as plastics.”
In India, the Earth Day event was held in a shopping mall in Bangalore, attracting more than 400 people who were provided with information on e-waste recycling.
Graham Davy concluded "Earth Day is all about people coming together across the globe to voice their appreciation for the planet and demand its protection. This provided us with the perfect opportunity to hold our first ever international e-waste recycling event in nine countries, spanning four continents. I would like to thank everyone, all over the world, who took part. By doing so you have helped us promote the very important cause of responsible e-waste recycling.”