HP's 2006 Recyclables Weigh As Much As 600 Jumbo JetsHP's 2006 Recyclables Weigh As Much As 600 Jumbo Jets

If you stacked up all the hardware and printer cartridges that Hewlett-Packard recycled last year, the load would weigh more than 600 jumbo jets.

As analysts have predicted, the green movement is seriously hitting the high-tech industry.

"The tech industry will wake up to the green [movement] and get on board with it this year," said Tony Kern, a deputy managing partner with Deloitte, in a recent interview. "There's a very strong green movement, and it will manifest itself as energy savings and devices made from recycled materials."

For HP's part, the hardware manufacturer recycled worldwide more than 164 million pounds of hardware and HP print cartridges in its 2006 fiscal year. That's an increase of 16% over the previous year, according to the company.

On top of that, HP said it collected more than 2.5 million units of hardware globally -- weighing more than 50 million pounds -- to be refurbished for resale or donation.

To date, the company has cumulatively recycled more than 920 million pounds of hardware and cartridges. HP reports that this puts them on track to surpass its goal of recycling 1 billion cumulative pounds by the end of this year.

"Part of environmental responsibility at HP is to provide global recycling programs that give our customers choice, convenience, and control in how to dispose of products responsibly," said Pat Tiernan, VP of corporate, social, and environmental responsibility at HP, in a written statement.

Here are some HP recycling stats:

-- In the Americas region, HP collected more than 42 million pounds of hardware. A series of free consumer recycling events held throughout the United States between June and September recovered 1 million pounds. The events were held in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Oregon;

-- In the Asia Pacific region, HP nearly doubled the amount of hardware it recycled to almost 7 million pounds; and

-- In 2005, HP reported recovering for reuse and recycling more than 45%, or 164 million pounds, of the total volume of hardware taken back by the top three PC vendors at the time. According to HP, IBM recovered about 120 million pounds, and Dell recovered about 80 million pounds.