Save the Planet – Recycle Your Console

Captain Planet’s got nothing on Sony.

In a turn of planetary charity, Sony has announced that they are setting up a program that would allow people to turn in their old broken or unwanted Playstation consoles in for recycling. The Sony “Take Back Recycling Program” will launch September 15th, and will accept any of it’s own consoles for free, and any other consumer electronics for a fee. Yes, if you don’t have a Sony product, you must pay to help conserve resources with your puny Xbox’s or Gamecubes. Imagine that.

The company has partnered with 75 Waste Management (WM) Recycle America eCycling centers across the country, and you can mail your console in if you don’t live near to one. The number of centers to accept the consoles will hope to increase within a year, Sony predicts.

“We believe it is Sony’s responsibility to provide customers with end-of-life solutions for all the products we manufacture,” said Stan Glasgow, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics.

What kind of incentive do you get for being so environment-conscious? Nothing. You get the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping to save the planet. Somehow, I can’t see this exactly being a great way of motivating people, when people have enough trouble keeping from throwing their beer and soda cans out their car windows. Though I must admit, it would be pretty humorous to see if people littered the sides of highways with broken and useless Sony consoles in the same fashion.