Kyocera launched a national mobile phone takeback program for consumers wanting to dispose of unused cellphones of any brand, the company said Wednesday. Kyocera said it’s working with SecondWave Recycling, which promotes free phone recycling to support charities. For every four phones recycled for their raw materials, Kyocera will donate $1 to Cell Phones For Soldiers, a nonprofit that provides free communication services to active-duty military members and veterans, Kyocera said. Nearly 2 billion mobile phones are sold globally each year, but only 13 percent of unused phones are recycled in the U.S., with the remaining 87 percent going to landfills or incinerators, Kyocera said. In the take-back program, donors can print free shipping labels at Kyocera’s sustainability website and Kyocera will provide shipping containers for phones at no charge to those who need them, the company said. SecondWave will receive the phones and break them down for their recyclable raw materials, it said.

LG Electronics is teaming with the NCAA and the Men’s Final Four Indiana Host Committee to stage an e-waste collection event March 28 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, site of the Final Four, LG said Wednesday. Those who bring their e-waste to the event for collection will receive tickets to Final Four Fan Fest and, while supplies last, Final Four Green Team pins, said LG, which is an NCAA corporate partner. The event is being coordinated through RecycleForce, a 501(c)3 charity organization that offers “comprehensive and innovative recycling services while providing life-changing workforce training to formerly incarcerated individuals,” LG said. Items to be accepted for collection include computer components, home electronics, small appliances and home office gear and videogame consoles, LG said. Refrigerators and washers and dryers are among the items that won’t be accepted, it said. The two men’s semifinal matches of the Final Four are planned for April 4, with the final to be April 6.

A Michigan man faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he's sentenced July 14 after pleading guilty to federal conspiracy charges for repeatedly trying to smuggle hazardous e-waste to Hong Kong and China and concealing his actions by lying about them on federal disclosure forms. The defendant, Lip Bor Ng (aka Paul Wu), admits to having had others load CRT monitors into containers for shipment from Detroit to Los Angeles and on to Hong Kong and China between 2010 and 2011 and directing others to “file documents containing false statements related to the merchandise in order to conceal the presence of the CRT monitors,” said his signed plea agreement, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. Ng knew U.S. law prohibits the shipment of hazardous waste, including CRTs, to Hong Kong and China without their consent, the plea agreement said. He “knowingly” failed to file a “notification of intent” to export the CRTs with the Environmental Protection Agency as required under federal hazardous waste laws, it said. Ng admits to having filed fraudulent “shippers export documents” on the Commerce Department’s Automated Export System database certifying the containers he shipped from Detroit to Los Angeles for export to Hong Kong and China held plastic and metal “scrap” when they held “various types of used electronics and computer components,” including dozens of CRTs, it said.

The green group As You Sow withdrew a shareholder proposal it had sought to have placed on the agenda of Costco’s last annual meeting, Jan. 29 in Bellevue, Washington, that would have asked the board to publish a report on the warehouse club's e-waste recycling practices, As You Sow said in its Proxy Preview 2015 report. As You Sow had wanted the report to detail Costco’s “policy options to reduce potential pollution and public health problems from electronic waste generated as a result of its sales to consumers, and to increase the safe recycling of such wastes,” the green group said. It withdrew the proposal after Costco’s board “agreed to meet three times in 2015" to discuss collecting and recycling electronics, "with an eye to developing a policy on the subject and setting up store-based take-back pilot projects,” the group said. As You Sow has planted nearly 100 resolutions and proposals on the agendas of corporate annual meetings in a "shareholder advocacy" program it credits with resulting in a "paradigm shift in the behavior of both shareholders and company management that is creating a new environmentally sustainable economy," its website says. Costco representatives didn’t comment.

DirecTV partnered with solar energy provider SolarCity to build a 1 megawatt solar array at its California Broadcast Center in Long Beach, the direct broadcast satellite company said in a news release Monday. The solar farm will produce over 1.6 million kilowatt-hours annually, it said. DirecTV will provide clean, renewable energy to facilities, customers and employees by working with SolarCity and working to reduce its carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020, it said. DirecTV technicians will refer customers to SolarCity for clean energy for their homes, it said.

More than 4,000 New York City apartment buildings have filed requests for enrollment in the e-cycleNYC e-waste collection program since the New York state ban on disposal of unwanted electronics took effect Jan. 1, the New York City Sanitation Department (DSNY) said in an email Thursday. There are three "service options" for buildings enrolled in e-cycleNYC, depending on the number of apartments in each building, DSNY said. The program will do storage room "cleanouts" for buildings of 10 or more units and will provide locked storage bins for buildings of 50 or more units, it said. E-cycleNYC will work with the largest buildings, those with 250 units or more, to schedule outdoor electronics recycling events for building residents, DSNY said. DSNY estimates e-cycleNYC collected 280,000 pounds of electronics in 2014.

Energizer announced a battery that’s made with 4 percent recycled battery material. The Energizer EcoAdvanced “super-premium” battery, positioned at the top of Energizer’s alkaline AA lineup, will carry a 25-30 percent price premium at retail and will be sold at major retailers in the U.S. and Canada, emailed a company spokeswoman Tuesday. Responding to our question on battery life, she said the EcoAdvanced battery is the company’s longest-lasting alkaline type but didn’t quantify by how much, saying battery life is “dependent on the device and how the device is used.” In a statement, Michelle Atkinson, chief marketing officer, said, “Industry experts long believed it was impossible to create a battery made with recycled batteries while maintaining performance.” Energizer engineers spent seven years creating EcoAdvanced, which Atkinson called the company’s highest performance alkaline. The company created “proprietary partnerships” and an “innovative approach” that transforms recycled battery material into a “high-performance active ingredient,” she said. When used with energy rings, the ingredient results in a long-lasting battery with lower environmental impact due to less mining of virgin material in the manufacturing process and a reduction in the number of batteries consumed. Energizer plans to continue development of the technology toward a goal of producing a battery that uses 40 percent recycled material by 2025, said Atkinson. EcoAdvanced is the first step in creating value for recycled battery material, “which until today has had little or no economic value,” she said. On the company’s plans to encourage consumer recycling of batteries that can be reused to make recycled types, Atkinson said Energizer is a founding member of the national organization Corporation for Battery Recycling. CBR has formed six pilot programs to provide insight to the optimal collection, shipping, sorting and processing methods for discarded batteries, she said.

"Don’t risk being the next AT&T," reads a marketing message headlined, "AT&T fined $52 million for dumping their electronics," that was emailed to us Thursday by 4th Bin, a New York-based recycler that collects and processes e-waste from corporate clients. The email references AT&T’s settlement agreement last month with the California attorney general to resolve allegations that AT&T facilities in California unlawfully dumped hazardous e-waste into landfills over a nine-year period. In the agreement, AT&T technically wasn't fined $52 million as the 4th Bin email suggests, but agreed to pay $23.8 million in civil penalties and spend $28 million the next five years to bring the company into "environmental compliance." In its email, 4th Bin, which is e-Stewards-certified by the Basel Action Network, describes itself as "an advocate for responsible, sustainable and smart decisions in all phases of our client’s technology lifecycle." On California’s finding that AT&T "was not properly recycling their e-waste and was fined $52 million for their actions," AT&T was "hardly alone in their practices," 4th Bin says. "On a daily basis, we are approached by companies who seek free or low cost solutions to the disposal of their e-waste. The companies come in all shapes and sizes, are often well-known brands and many have internal sustainability initiatives and goals. Why are these companies willing to risk data security, financial repercussions and, equally important, their reputation is a question we constantly ask ourselves." The message warns prospective clients that "the next time some e-waste company tries to provide you and your company with a free or low-cost solution, think about AT&T." In "AT&T’s defense," 4th Bin said, the company publicly has committed itself "to spend $28 million dollars to right the ship. AT&T will choose a path of ethical recycling and we agree with this decision." AT&T declined to comment on the 4th Bin campaign.

Three in 10 U.S. adults have recycled a CE product in the past year, a CEA survey found. That's a 4 percent increase since two years ago, the last time CES canvassed consumers on their e-cycling habits, CEA said Thursday. This year’s survey also found that more than four in five adults rate recycling their old electronics as important or very important, CEA said. Other findings: (1) three in five said they know where they can recycle electronics, a slight decline from 2012; (2) virtually all those canvassed said they would be willing to travel "some distance" to recycle their unwanted electronics, and more than a third said they would travel more than 10 miles to do so; (3) the percentage of consumer recycling is up, but so is the percentage of those who discard. The survey found that 18 percent of consumers said they discarded electronic devices in the trash during the past year, a six-percentage point increase from 2012.