News

Mobile phone-recycling kiosks headed for the Lone Star State

August 8, 2012

San Diego startup ecoATM, the maker of kiosks that fully automate the buy-back of used mobile phones and other portable electronics, announced today it has achieved its first major expansion outside of California with the installation of 28 kiosks in malls throughout Texas.

The network of ecoATM kiosks will expand to the Southeast, East Coast and Midwest later this year, the company said.

The ecoATM kiosk network has been limited primarily to California until recently, but has already paid out millions of dollars to hundreds of thousands of customers for their old electronics, and in the process kept out of landfills hundreds of thousands of potentially toxic electronic devices, the company said. EcoATM said it finds second homes for three-quarters of the collected devices and responsibly recycles the rest to reclaim the rare earth metals.

"It is exciting to take the first big step in expanding ecoATM's footprint," said Tom Tullie, chairman and CEO of the company. "Over the past three years of testing the kiosks in California, ecoATM has seen tremendous consumer response, because we have created a kiosk that has two important features: It offers instant cash payment just like an ATM, and it is convenient and easy to use. No other buy-back or recycling systems have achieved this."

As part of its expansion into Texas, ecoATM is making a 10/100/1M guarantee:

• 10 = $10,000 that ecoATM guarantees they will collect for charities in Texas over the next 12 months. If they don't, they will donate the balance to the Boys and Girls Club of America.
• 100 = 100,000 used devices will be collected by ecoATM in Texas over the next year, thereby sparing Texas landfills many tons of toxic waste. If not, ecoATM will pay to plant a tree for every device short of the 100,000 mark through Trees for the Future, an organization in Haiti that employs local residents to plantf sapling trees in deforested areas of their communities.
• 1M = $1,000,000 will be paid out from ecoATM to Texas customers over the next year. If not, they will double the dollar amount the kiosk network in Texas has collected for local charities during the same period.

Read more about kiosk trends.