The Environmental Protection Agency's administrator Lisa Jackson joined with the heads of the General Services Administration, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the CEOs of Dell, Sprint and Sony to announce a new federal strategy to promote and increase awareness of electronics recycling.
The strategy was unveiled at Round2's e-scrap processing facility in Austin, Texas on July 20th, 2011.
The new policies were suggested based on recommendations made by the Obama Administration's Federal Electronics Stewardship Working Group.
The new policy will direct the government to:

• Encourage the development of more efficient and sustainable electronics while ensuring that federal agencies are responsibly recycling their electronics.
  

The General Services Administration will remove products from its purchase contracts that do not meet the appropriate environmental guidelines.
Specifically these will be products that do not meet Energy Star and EPEAT requirements and products that are not designed to be recycled.
The GSA has been directed to use electronics processors or take-back programs for the recycling of non-functional equipment.
A landfill ban will also be in effect for all federal IT equipment.

• Support recycling options for consumers.
  

Half of the states in the United States have already implemented responsible electronics recycling programs.
However all of them (except for California) rely on the producer to be responsible in making their products.
This means that the participation of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and retailers is crucial for the successful expansion of electronics recycling.
Dell, Sprint and Sony were all present on July 20th to proudly announce their commitment to electronics recycling for consumers.

• Support research on electronics recycling.
  

This new policy further encourages the development of grant programs and design competitions so that domestic recycling programs keeps improving.
The policy did cite growing concerns over rare earth metal supplies, which is motivation to develop new retrieval technologies.

• Strengthen the U.
  S.
  role in international electronics stewardship.
  

A big suggestion at the July 20th announcement was that the government support ratification of the Basel Convention.
This would be a big advantage for people who wish to have tighter controls on exporting electronic scrap overseas.
The policy also gives governmental support to companies that are e-Stewards and R2 certified.
Businesses with other accredited certification programs for electronics recycling will also get support from the government.
Under this new policy, the EPA will also increase its efforts to encourage other companies to become certified.
This news is very exciting to the individuals and businesses who are strong advocates of electronics recycling.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries stated that they appreciated the fact that the Obama Administration is taking "concrete, practical steps to address how the U.
S.
will manage its used and end-of-life electronics.
" Although this does not completely solve the U.
S.
e-waste issue, it is a huge step in the right direction!