Sony gone recycle-happy

Sony sure seems to be fond of this recycling business, what with the Reee chair announcement last month, and now this, a partnership with the Electronic Waste Company (EWC). What they (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) will be doing is recycling all those old PlayStations pretty well noone plays with anymore and putting them to good use -- what with the backwards compatibility in the PS2 and PS3 for the originals, it's certainly a cause with a lot of common sense behind it.

The EWC is one of the UK's leading electronic recycling companies, and with this deal they'll be not only investing in new and better machinery, but will be taking care of a good 250 tonnes of PlayStation goodness, or 300,000 cases in the first year alone. Egads! The systems apparently come from people who have returned them for "upgrades or refurbishment" (presuming upgrade here means trading up for a PS2 or PS3).

What'll they turn into? "Routes [...] have already been identified" it seems, and soon the world will have a whole lot more pens and chairs.

Damian Lambkin, The Electronic Waste Company’s Managing Director said: “We have cemented our position as the electronics recycling company of choice for businesses in the South West. Now, this contract with Sony is a real vote of confidence in our ability to deal with a range of associated materials at high volumes.”

Gregor Margetson, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s Environmental Programmes Manager said: “The quality of materials produced at this stage of the recycling process is fundamental in enabling PlayStations to be effectively recycled. We work with experts in a number of fields to minimise the environmental impact of our operations and believe the Electronic Waste Company is able to meet our high standards.”

Around 300 million PlayStation consoles have been sold worldwide, since the launch of the original PlayStation in 1994. Around 100 million of those have been sold in Europe. The EWC pledges to reuse or recycle 100% of this equipment -- nothing collected or brought to them is sent to landfill.

Damien commented: “We recently achieved ISO 9001 and 14001 for the quality of our environmental and managements systems and there is no doubt that this focus on quality is the key in attracting contracts of this scale.”

This certainly won't be the end of the efforts, as the company is now developing processes to remove other recyclable components from the PlayStation casings such as clips and foam. More, this gig has allowed them to hire an additional 12 people at its factory site in Pool.