The EPA presented the honors to Samsung and other winners through a virtual award ceremony for its SMM Electronics Challenge 2021 program last week. The Korean firm has received the EPA SMM Gold Tier Award for the eighth consecutive year — since the program’s inception in 2014. That reflects the company’s excellence in e-waste recycling. According to Samsung, it collects and recycles an average of 100 million pounds of e-waste per year in the US. That’s the greenhouse gas (GHG) equivalent of over two million trees aggregating carbon for ten years. The Korean behemoth has been doing so since 2008. Over the years, it has recycled more than a billion pounds of electronics from US landfills. The company aims to use 500,000 tons of recycled plastics in its products globally by 2030.
Samsung wins more accolades for its sustainability efforts
Samsung has been long putting in efforts to make its products, packaging, and manufacturing processes environment-friendly. Several of its worksites globally now run on 100 percent renewable energy sources. The company has also been using recycled material on its products to reduce its carbon footprint. For example, the latest Galaxy S22 series makes use of discarded fishing nets. These continued sustainability efforts have won Samsung a Sustained Excellence Award from the EPA. The agency also specially recognized Samsung’s SolarCell Remote that the company ships with its 4K and 8K QLED (Neo, Q80A, Q70A, Q60A) and MicroLED TVs. Introduced last year, the Samsung SolarCell Remote helps reduce battery and plastic waste. The Korean firm estimates this remote to help avoid 99 million AA batteries being dumped onto the Earth. That should also mean a reduction of 5,840 tons of GHG over a seven-year period, which is the average lifecycle of TVs. Additionally, Samsung uses 24 percent upcycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and Polycarbonate (PC) on this remote. So it is cutting down on plastic waste as well. Samsung has already announced the second-gen SolarCell Remote that takes these sustainability steps up a notch. Unveiled at CES 2022 in January, it features advanced technologies that allow it to source energy from radio frequencies in devices like Wi-Fi routers. The Korean firm projects this remote to help eliminate more than 200 million AA batteries from landfills. Samsung will include its second-gen SolarCell Remote in more of its products in the future.
