Dell Computer has received the National Recycling Coalition’s annual Recycling Works Award for its recycling and personal responsibility initiative in recovering outdated and unwanted IT equipment.

Dell also announced that it plans to partner with customers and people who care about the environment and become the “greenest” technology company in the world with a zero-carbon initiative.

Dell computer has reported that it is ahead of its multi-year forecast for recycling 78 million pounds (approximately 40,000 tons) of IT equipment in 2006 alone. Dell announced that its goal in recycling equipment by 2009 is 275 million pounds by 2009, and that it will recycle 1 billion pounds of IT equipment far ahead of its competitors.

Dell has also announced as key initiatives no-charge worldwide consumer recycling services for Dell branded equipment (no consumer purchase required).

Dell has also partnered with Goodwill Industries to allow consumers to donate any brand of electronics equipment at Goodwill centers in San Diego and San Francisco, California; central and south Texas; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; western North Carolina; and statewide in New Jersey and Michigan under Dell’s tight recycling guidelines. 

Dell also encourages customers to donate functional but outdated IT equipment to not-for-profit organizations through the National Cristina Foundation (NCF) in the U.S. and Canada, the U.K., Ireland, France and some locations in Brazil.