LG Electronics is giving a new meaning to the term "green screen." The company has announced that it will be offering a recycling program for hotel TVs and computer monitors beginning next year.
Partnering with the Houston-based Waste Management on the effort, LG plans to launch the program in the second quarter of 2010 to help hotels that are upgrading their electronic offerings to dispose of their old equipment more sustainably.
As the manufacturer of the new flat-panel televisions that are replacing many of the current equipment in use at hotels, LG’s leadership sees this as a way to take responsibility for the products that are being replaced, while making it easier for hoteliers to upgrade. The company is also offering recycling for the packaging of its new flat-panels and computers.
"When you think of the hundreds of thousands of old picture tube sets that are going to be replaced in the coming years with these new flat panels, it just makes a lot of sense to put a program in place that gives our hotel operator customers the opportunity to responsibly dispose of these outdated and obsolete TVs," says John Taylor, vice president for LG Electronics.
Taylor described this program as part of the company’s larger efforts on sustainability. The same day LG announced its recycling program at the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show in New York it also announced that it was expanding its Pro:Centric line of LCD and plasma HDTVs to include energy-saving items.
LG and Waste Management put this program in the context of more broad green efforts being made across the country and in the hospitality industry in particular, and as particularly valuable in a year when televisions made the transition to going all digital nationwide.
"There was a time as recently as three or four years ago when there was an aftermarket for these old sets after they were upgraded, but that really doesn’t exist anymore," says Taylor. "Analog TVs are really a thing of the past. You don’t find too many picture-tube TVs or analog TVs any more, and that also underscores the need for recycling."
