VISION TO HELP ADDRESS THE GLOBAL COMPUTER RECYCLING CRISIS

The vision for GreenCitizen goes back to 2002 when the company’s founder, James Kao, first became interested in finding a solution to the challenges we face in recovering and recycling electronics.

He had just seen a segment of PBS's NOW with Bill Moyers: Toxic E-Trash. An admitted “gadget freak” and technology enthusiast, he began to look around his own home, noticing the amount of outdated electronics he and his family were accumulating. He was inspired by the challenge of how to dispose of them responsibly.

Kao spent the next three years traveling around the world to study the issue and learn how it was being handled in the US and other countries.

His dream was to capture the full potential of what communities can accomplish to protect the environment, by working to…

• make recycling electronics convenient and rewarding, so everyone would participate;
   
• seed understanding so everyone would make recycling - of all types of electronics - part of their everyday routine;
   
• provide an accountability “scorecard” so manufacturers, retailers, environmentalists and government could finally measure the success of their investments and efforts to support recycling;
   
• ensure that America stepped up to the responsibility of the safe disposal of all toxins from electronic waste – and not export these poisons to other nations.

We are proud to have started our company in the heart of Silicon Valley, where many of today’s electronic products were conceived. In the spirit of innovation that has been our foundation, we hope to create a model for responsible electronics recycling that can be implemented around the world to save our water, our land and our health from harmful toxins.