Hewlett-Packard urges consumers to dispose e-waste responsibly

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is running a campaign, titled Greenovation, to urge consumers to take a pledge that they will dispose electronic goods such as printers, scanners and personal computers in a responsible manner.

The company has created a website, Greenovation.in, where users can reach and provide their email address as consent to pledge. The website also offers users to opt for the HP Product Take Back Program. It will enable consumers to handover HP products to the company, which will dispose the products in a responsible way.

Srihari Gopinath, manager, corporate marketing, HP India, tells afaqs!, “Safe electronic waste disposal is one aspect that users of technology should be aware of and that’s the objective of this campaign.”

Apart from the banner ad campaign, the company has also started an on-ground activity named ‘Mobile Graffiti’ to enroll users.

The activity is conceptualised and executed by OMD Digital. It involves mobile hoarding screens to be installed in shopping malls across various cities in India.

HP has already conducted a ‘Mobile Graffiti’ activity at Forum Mall in Bengaluru on September 16-18.

Speaking to afaqs!, Beerajaah Sswain, director, digital and emerging media, OMD, says, “About 1,500 consumers pledged to dispose electronic waste responsibly during ‘Mobile Graffiti’ activity in Bengaluru.”

Sswain adds, “HP will soon carry out the ‘Mobile Graffiti’ activity in Delhi and Mumbai as well.”

Prior to the Mobile Graffiti activity, HP had used Affle’s SMS 2.0 platform to generate awareness and get users to pledge to recycle e-waste responsibly.

For the uninitiated, SMS 2.0 is a text messaging application for GPRS based mobiles. Users can download this free application from the mobile operator’s portal.

Once downloaded, SMS 2.0 allows users to compose and send messages in a way similar to the default SMS application which comes preloaded on mobiles. The difference is that it displays a banner ad at the bottom of the screen while composing or reading a message, and a full screen ad during the process of sending the message.

The Greenovation SMS 2.0 campaign began in July 2009 and was active for eight weeks. It was targeted primarily at smart and high-end mobile phone users in the age range of 20-40 years.

A banner ad saying ‘Save our planet’ was displayed at the bottom of the mobile screen while users composed their messages using SMS 2.0. Once they sent the message, the banner ad was replaced by a full screen ad, saying ‘Take a pledge today to recycle e-waste responsibly’, and gave an option titled ‘Press options for more’. On clicking this option, users were offered to click on ‘Know More’ about the campaign or ‘Take the pledge’.

In an e-mail response to afaqs!, Anuj Kumar, executive director, South Asia, Affle, says, “The SMS 2.0 campaign reached more than 0.7 million mobile phone users. About 11,000 users clicked on ‘Know More’, while 1,750 users pledged for the e-waste campaign in a span of just one week.”

Sswain reveals that overall, more than 15,000 consumers have already pledged to dispose or recycle electronic waste responsibly through the Greenovation campaign.

HP claims that for every pledge, it will donate Rs 50 to an NGO which is involved in recycling of electronic waste.