Hi Everyone,
Thank YOU for recycling with @BestBuy - Please continue & help us to goal of 1 billion lbs of e-waste! [
Press Release |
Recycle It On ]
The 40th anniversary of Earth Day is coming up fast, but when you live in Minnesota Earth Day most often doesn’t look like it’s actually that day. The grass is usually still dead, the leaves haven’t shown up on the trees yet, and on rare occasion there is still snow on the ground in places. This year has been vastly different! We got no snow in March (for the first time in like 100 years), and the temperatures have been between 60 and 70 degrees. The reason I mention this is that this has allowed me and my wife to get our scooters out on the road much sooner than normal, and I can’t wait to ride more!
This weekend after riding my scooter for the day, I came home and logged into Facebook, and I noticed that we have a Facebook page dedicated to the new electric bicycles and scooters that we sell (in select locations). This made me think that while I love my gas powered scooter, I think it would be awesome to have an electric bike to ride around town on. The stores that sold these were previously only on the west coast, but we are now selling these in the Chicago area too, which means they’re getting closer to MN.
We realize that most everything we sell consumes energy, but when we can help our customers reduce this cost of energy we are all for it. One major source of energy consumption is the energy being consumed by electronics when they are turned off. In an effort to fight this type of energy consumption we have added an interesting promotion in this week’s ad.
When a customer takes advantage of our recycling program this week they can purchase one of two models of Rocketfish™ surge protectors for $20 off, that have a very interesting energy saving feature. These surge protectors have a master outlet, four master-controlled outlets, and two outlets that are always on. When the surge protector detects that the item plugged into the master outlet is not drawing its normal amount of power it shuts off all power to the four master-controlled outlets. An example of how this would be beneficial would be having your TV plugged into the master outlet, you shut the TV down, the surge protector then automatically shuts off all power to your gaming systems, your Blu-ray player, and your home theater system. I know I will be getting a couple of these for my own household.
Another great way to save energy is by purchasing items that qualify for the Energy Star rating, which is awarded to specific products by the Environmental Protection Agency based on their consumption of energy. We sold enough Energy Star rated TVs in 2009 to save our customers more than 40 million dollars during the life of those TVs, and enough Energy Star rated laptop computers to save our customers 18 million dollars during these laptops lifetime. It does seem like most people are aware of the Energy Star program, but they really don’t know how much they will actually save if they purchase an item that is rated by this program (versus one that isn’t Energy Star rated). If you want to find out how much energy a particular product will save you just go to the Energy Star website, and they have a database on every model that has qualified for this label.
While looking through this week’s ad, a particular image really caught my attention. We have a picture of a Sony Reader Daily Edition, with a newspaper displayed on the screen, in front of a stack of actual newspapers. In the same ad the front page is of the Apple iPad that was recently released, which has been praised for its ability to act as an electronic reader. This started me thinking about how these devices have the potential of someday replacing printed material altogether, and how many forests this could eventually save. It is very rare that a consumer electronics product would be inherently environmentally friendly, but it seems like this type of product is an exception to the rule.
In closing I would just like to say Happy Earth Day to everyone (since I won’t be working that day)! I would also like to encourage everyone to spend that day outside, whether it be on your new electric bike, or reading a book in a park with your new iPad. I will be at Target Field watching the Minnesota Twins play the Cleveland Indians (outdoor baseball is back in MN), and of course taking photographs of the game with my new DSLR.
Karina-BBY
on:
A Gift for my Wife
on:
How To Gift A Mobile Phone
