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GreenFinance: Target testing electronics 'recycling' program

If you're looking to put some of your hard-earned money into a company that is trying to do right by the environment, the choices are a tad slim considering the sheer number of public companies available today.

The good news is that the top two discount retailers in the U.S. -- Wal-Mart and Target -- are indeed making headway in reducing environmental impacts while conserving energy and ensuring recapture of certain materials is a priority.

Wal-Mart instituted a program this year that requires vendors to make packaging smaller (way smaller) for certain items as an introduction to reducing the amount of waste customers will see when tossing those impossible-to-open gadget clamshells.


But, that relies on the customer to be ecologically aware, and although headway has been made, many U.S. consumers still toss everything form glass to plastic to aluminum in the regular trash bin. Target is taking a different approach on its website by selling 'recycled' consumer electronics products. Now, that may be a tad misleading, I suppose -- Target is actually selling refurbished or store-returned products for lower-than-new prices on its website in an effort to clear inventory that has been returned by customers. So, this is recycling in a different sense -- but it's just as important.

Instead of wasting time, effort, gas, paper and a million other resources to send these products back to a handful of manufacturers, Target is attempting to sell them again to customers looking for bargains. This "experiment" -- which has been confirmed by the retailer -- could be a great way to save costs and resources from multiple sources and allow Target to sell these products again without the expensive paper and resource trail a return to a refurbishing house or manufacturer takes. With the American appetite for gadgetry and electronics items (which are the top sellers this holiday season), this is a great move by Target to lower its footprint into the wasted resources category.

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