Wal-Mart Report Card

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The Talk: “Our vision is to reach a day where there are no dumpsters behind our stores and clubs, and no landfills containing our throwaways. We want to create zero waste. ”1
Grade C
The Walk: WalMart announced it was teaming up with Samsung to offer nationwide, recycling program for its own brand of TVs – Durabrand and Ilo on November 13, 2008.   Details can be found at http://www.samsung.com/recyclingdirect
About Target: Wal-mart has manufactured its own house brands of TVs, including iLo and Durabrand. They say they are no longer making house branded TVs.

 

Category Possible Points Points Earned Details
Scope of US takeback recycling program 38 28  
Offers free convenient national takeback recycling for their branded TVs for individual consumers 25 19 WalMart has teamed up Samsung which has 174 drop-off locations with at least one in every state with promises of drop-off events.
Offers free national takeback recycling for a larger scope of their branded products in addition to TVs 8 6 At collection events, they take back all brands. Wal-mart’s Sams Club stores have an online trade-in program for other electronics, but not for TVs.2   Walmart does in store collection of cell phones and ink cartridges. Not full credit because customers must use varying channels to return different types of products
Offers free national takeback recycling for other customers – not just individual consumers 3 3 No limits on the number of return items or types of consumers.
Offers to take products from other brands for free or a nominal charge 2 0  
Provides responsible recycling 37 9  
Signed Manufacturers Commitment to Responsible Electronics Recycling or other public commitment to not export to developing countries/use prison labor/landfill/incinerate toxic materials* 15
5
“[Samsung] is working directly with leading e-waste recyclers who do not incinerate, send to solid waste landfill, or export toxic waste (defined in a manner consistent with the commonly accepted definition of hazardous electronic waste) to developing countries.” 3  There is no mention as to whether prison labor is allowed or not.
Publishes full recycling standards on company website 5 0  
Use only E-Stewards as recyclers 5 0  
Discloses recycling and refurbishing vendors on company website 5 4 The SAMSUNG RECYCLING DIRECT website lists its partners. “We meticulously selected partners who mirror our own environmental philosophy."4
Discloses countries where final disposal/recycling of toxic materials occurs 7 0
  
Volumes and visibility 15 3  
Has ambitious collection and recycling goals expressed as a percent of sales or other measures
 2 0  
Significant volume of e-waste collected and recycled nationally and publicly reported as a percent of sales or other measure 10
 1 Wal-mart collected 1.75 million lbs of electronics (not all TVs) in parking lot collections in 2007. 5
Easy to find recycling information on company website 3 2 The e-waste recycling webpage is two clicks off the walmart.com home page if you know to look under “Sustainability.”  But searches from the home page on “recycling” etc. will never get you there, since this info lives on the walmartstores.com website.
Public policy
 10 1  
Statement of support and active work in support of producer takeback recycling legislation with performance goals for manufacturers at the state level 5 0  No statement
Statement of support and active work on federal legislation to ban the export of toxic electronic waste to developing nations 5 0  No statement
  Total Possible
Total Earned
 
TOTAL SCORE
100
40
  C

1. http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/7762.aspx
2. http://www.econewonline.com/samsclub
3. http://pages.samsung.com/us/recyclingdirect/partners.html
4. http://pages.samsung.com/us/recyclingdirect/partners.html
5. http://walmartstores.com/download/2338.pdf