MEDIA RELEASE

Impressive results in Bay of Plenty eDay

For immediate release: Wednesday 3 October 2007

Bay of Plenty residents cleared their homes of nearly 50 tonnes of old computer equipment and mobile phones last weekend in New Zealand's first national eDay.

The free drive-through event was held in Rotorua, Whakatane and Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty. Nationally, collections were also held in Wellington, Invercargill, Wanaka, Alexandra, Queenstown, Wanganui, Hamilton, Auckland's North Shore and Manukau City.

Overall in the Bay of Plenty, 1153 cars brought 49 tonnes of e waste which will now be sorted, recycled or disposed of responsibly.

The Whakatane and Tauranga collections were organised by Wendy Gaisford of Environment Bay of Plenty, with support from local partners.

Ms Gaisford says the local response was terrific, with volunteers kept busy sorting, stacking and packing the e-waste before it was taken away to be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way.

“We were really impressed with the response. It’s great that people took the opportunity to dispose of their waste correctly, instead of filling our landfills with it.”

National organiser, Laurence Zwimpfer, said the response around the country was phenomenal, with more than 6,900 carloads of electronic waste (e-waste) dropped off at 12 venues over two days. Thanks to the event, more than 26,000 computer items including monitors, CPUs and printers were diverted from being dumped in New Zealand's landfills.

"This doesn't include all the little items such as keyboards, circuit boards and mice that will also be recycled," Mr Zwimpfer said.

He said e-waste and its toxic materials, including lead and mercury from old computers, is globally the fastest growing type of waste being sent to landfill - posing a potential toxic hazard for people, animals and the environment.

The total collected throughout the weekend was more than five times the amount handed in during a Dell pilot computer recycling day held in Wellington last year.

“Following this weekend’s success we’re keen to support additional communities who want to get involved next year. A number of regions have already expressed interest,” he concluded.

Households, businesses and schools are advised to visit www.eday.org.nz for more information about e-waste.

eDay 2007 is supported nationally by CANZ, The Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Education, 2020 Communications Trust, Divers, Remarkit, TES-AMM, Dell and Trade Me.

Locally, eDay 2007 is supported by:
Tauranga: Computer Recyclers; the Sustainable Business Network (SBN); Duffill Watts Consulting; Envirostate; Satara; and Fulton Hogan. (Co-ordinated by Environment Bay of Plenty)
Whakatane: Whakatane District Council; Opus Consulting; Horizons Energy; and Simply Computers (Co-ordinated by Environment Bay of Plenty).

eDay 2007 Results by area
Number of cars Total tonnage per area
North Shore 774 38
Manukau 959 27
Tauranga 673 26
Whakatane 313 16
Hamilton 834 42
Rotorua 167 7
Wanganui 481 23
Wellington 2243 79
Wanaka 56 5
Queenstown 59 3
Alexandra 78 6
Invercargill 337 19
TOTAL 6974 293

ends

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