Tech giant reports increased use of recycled metals

Global tech manufacturer HP made progress on its sustainability goals in 2022, using 45% more recycled metals and auditing twice as many recyclers as the previous year. 

HP maintains a set of sustainability goals, which include reaching 75% circularity for products and packaging by 2030. (That would mean 75% of the company’s packaging and product content would come from recycled materials.) In 2022, it achieved 40% circularity, up one percentage point from 2021. 

The new HP Dragonfly and Elite 1000 Series computers include 90% recycled magnesium in the enclosure case, for example.

“We are working with suppliers to source metals with a high proportion of recycled content for some personal systems products, including up to 75% recycled content aluminum and up to 90% recycled content magnesium,” the report noted. 

In its 2022 Sustainable Impact Report, the company noted that more than 95% of home and office printers, notebooks, displays and workstations shipped to customers in 2022 included recycled materials.

The other side of the circle

On top of using more recycled content in its products, HP has several other circularity-related goals.

For instance, HP aims to recycle 1.2 million metric tons of hardware and supplies by 2025. Since the beginning of 2016, it has recycled 879,100 metric tons, the report noted, up from 764,800 in 2021. 

The company also avoided 28 million meters of cord in 2022 by shipping 70% of inkjet printers and 3% of LaserJet printers without USB cords and including shorter cords for the rest.

The company repaired 5.2 million units, and of the material collected through its take-back programs, 89.6% were reused or recycled by HP or a third party. 

HP prefers its vendors to have third-party certification, such as R2, e-Stewards or WEEELABEX. It uses Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to audit vendors at least every three years for environmental, health and safety practices and performance, and to ensure there is no leakage of materials to facilities outside of HP’s approved vendor network.

Through ERM, HP audited 51 vendor facilities in 25 countries during 2022, which translates to 82% of its reuse vendor facilities and 52% of its recycling vendor facilities. The company conducted 20 initial audits in 2022, double last year’s number, and 31 repeat audits, also twice as many as it performed in 2021. 

During those audits, 58 major non-conformances were identified, with 31% of those being related to health and safety, and 24% being environmental concerns. All were resolved.

HP’s current list of recycling vendors includes, among others, Canon, Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations, ERI, ERP, Greenchip, H2 Compliance, Homeboy Industries, Korea Electronic Recycling Cooperative, Quantum Lifecycle Partners, Sims Lifecycle Services, Sunnking and TES-AMM.

Its reuse vendors are CDTI, Flextronics Brazil, Hewlett-Packard Financial Services, Nippon General Trading and TES-AMM. 

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