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For the past year or so gadget companies have been trying to go green.  They’ve released products made of more recyclable materials, started taking back old gadgets, and recycling those old gadgets.  And of all days of the year, it makes sense to announced expanded efforts in recycling on Earth Day.

Sony is doing just that, announcing it’s newest effort, GreenFill.  Sony is pushing it as a first for any consumer electronics company.  GreenFill will place in store drop off points across the country in participating stores.  The boxes aren’t all that big, and Sony is really only saying it wants small gadgets such as small laptops, old cell phones, portable gaming systems, digital cameras, etc.  Since its a drop box, Sony can’t charge for competitor’s products like they do with their Take Back Recycling Program.  So feel free to drop an old Game Boy, DS, LG cell phone, or Canon digital camera into the box.  Sony won’t mind, really.

So far GreenFill has only 81 nation wide drop boxes, which means they are fairly spread out.  It looks like they haven’t reached a deal with Best Buy at all to put the drop boxes in store, or Best Buy didn’t agree.  The drop boxes look to be in small, local stores and chains, which might even be all that local.  For example, searching for a location near Syracuse, NY ends up with the closest location being 120 miles away in Potsdam, NY.  Driving 2 hours just to recycle an old digital camera or similar just defeats the purpose.  Sony’s on a mission to recycle on pound of e-waste for every pound of consumer electronics sold, it would just be a good idea if the amount of car emissions don’t completely put that recycling to waste.

Read [PR Newswire]
Read [Sony Green]