零售巨头百思买（NYSE：BBY）已经看到其回收背景计划从昂贵的赌博发展成为一家赚钱的快速增长的业务。“这是有利可图的。但几乎没有。”百思买环境可持续性高级总监Leo Raudys竞彩足球app怎么下载。“人们仍然不相信。”

The skepticism comes from the fact that the program is not only free to consumers, but they can also drop off just about any kind of junk that runs or ran on electricity. A dead tube TV? Check. The cell phone you dunked? Of course. That leaky washing machine? Yep. Best Buy takes appliances, too.

So how does the company cover its costs and a bit more? I had the chance to catch up with Raudys last week during the竞彩足球app怎么下载可持续性运营峰会in New York City, where he spoke on a panel titled “Successfully Tackling Waste.” Afterward, Raudys talked about how Best Buy turned the potentially thorny problem of collecting recycling into a self-subsidizing operation.

At its launch in 2009, the chain required consumers to buy a $10 store card to drop off recycling. But last November, Best Buy dropped that fee.

Today, the program generates two streams of revenue. First, Best Buy takes a cut from its recycling partners. When truckloads of old TVs, PCs and dryers go to its processing partners, the plastic, gold, lead, nickel and other materials recovered from the dismantled waste is sold to be remade into new materials. And while volatile, the prices for all of these commodities have generally been heading up over the past few years, raising the share that comes back to Best Buy. A very small percentage of the waste, Raudys estimates, ends up recovered and refurbished.

其次，百思买从其合作伙伴那里收集收入：大型，著名的电子品牌。劳迪斯说：“有25个州有规则要求制造商每年回收他们出售的商品的一部分。”“我们的网络可以提供（电子制造商）无法匹配的效率，因此他们可以购买访问权限。”

他说，百思买还能够通过稳步降低收集和运输消费者浪费的成本来改善工作流程和提高量来提高利润率。较高的废物也使最好的买也可以从其回收合作伙伴中赢得更多的竞争利率。

但是，百思买是否看到回收服务吸引的客户的任何额外销售？毕竟，当许多零售商的平板电视价格大致相似时，许多客户会选择可以拿走旧套装的供应商。但是，该计划的好处尚不清楚。劳迪（Raudys）解释说，由于回收政策，很难确定发生的销售。他说：“我们认为这是对客户的服务。”

It could have been a costly, unsustainable service, though. “The program was projected to cost $5 million to $10 million in the first year,” Raudys said. “We didn’t know what we were getting into.” If costs stayed that high, he said, the program might’ve been scrapped.

The program’s most tangible overhead costs are labor and storage space, to process the waste at its stores. There’s also the cost to truck pallets to recycling sites. Less visible costs for Best Buy include auditing the processes of its recycling partners. Raudys said the company hires third-party inspectors to enforce a公司回收政策that aims to match or exceed state and federal guidelines. To avoid the export of hazardous materials to low-income countries, Best Buy’s program includes physical inspection of shipping containers and paper auditing.

电子垃圾处理实践仍然是一个有争议的挑战。在令人尴尬的启示之后，对电子垃圾做法的审查增加了-- most famously a 2008 investigation by CBS’60 Minutesprogram -- that exposed recyclers who were sending e-waste to be dumped or processed in primitive, dangerous methods.

专家说，这个问题有所改善，但仍然存在。“至少有一半在美国收集的电子废物出口到所谓的回收利用，出口到亚洲和非洲，经常在危害工人健康状况的情况下被砸碎，燃烧，抛弃或处理。”Basel Action Network的总监，E-Waste监管小组。

三个合作伙伴处理百思买的电子废物。在美国西部的材料去Electronic Recyclers International(ERI) in Fresno, California. In the Midwest, old gear flows toRegency Technologiesin Cleveland, Ohio -- and in the East,E Structors在巴尔的摩，马里兰州处理电子废物。设备回收由摄政和雅可环境in Snohomish, Washington.

Puckett would like to see all of Best Buy’s e-waste handlers meet the e-Stewards certification, a program co-developed by BAN and other environmental groups. “Only e-Stewards is consistent with international agreements barring export of hazardous e-waste to developing countries and forbids using municipal landfills or incineration for hazardous e-waste,” he said.

Of Best Buy’s three e-waste handlers, only ERI is currently e-Steward certified. But all three meet the R2 code, an industry-backed standard.

In the absence of federal or state regulations for e-waste, Best Buy’s take-back program is one of only a small number of options available. Just 25 states have e-waste rules,although Best Buy accepts recycling nationwide。普基特说：“该国有很多地方没有其他选择。”

同时，该计划的增长表明有很大的需求。劳迪斯说，自该计划开始以来，百思买已经收集了50亿磅的回收利用，包括电器和电子废物。鉴于回收量每年增长10-15％，因此可能是百思买to hit its goal of 1 billion pounds of consumer goods很快。去年，约有400万客户降落了近8600万磅的电子产品和7300万磅的电器以进行回收（见下表）。

Best Buy’s global recycling operations

Best Buy’s efforts come against a backdrop of intensifying efforts to improve e-waste recycling nationwide. Last week,斯台普斯宣布与惠普达成协议，以取得回归所有尺寸的计算机，监视器，台式打印机/扫描仪/复印机设备，手持电子设备以及其他各种退休的Gizmos。

The number of recycling drop-off locations for consumers nationwide grew to nearly 7,500 from just over 5,000 in 2011, according to theFirst Annual Report的环保领导力倡议（eli），一个由Consumer Electronics Association, a consortium of major electronics manufacturers and retailers.

ELI参与者安排了去年的4.6亿磅消费电子产品的回收，比2010年回收的3亿磅增长了53％。该集团的目标是在2016年推动该数字达到10亿英镑的年龄。

Photo ofBest Buy store signbyLynn Watson通过shutterstock。