VISTA, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/09/13 -- E-World Online, a leading provider of consumer electronics recycling solutions, and Costco Wholesale Corporation, the largest membership retailer in the U.S., have launched a national program to make managing merchandise returns more sustainable. E-World Online's Retail Return Program (RRP) is the first program to track returned merchandise and find markets for reusable or recyclable products. Costco has implemented, trained and deployed E-World Online's RRP program in all of their U.S. warehouses, making it the largest such retail return program. Since E-World Online's RRP for Costco began in June 2012, 1.1 million items equaling 14 million pounds of returned material have been transported, cataloged, recycled, remarketed or salvaged. Each warehouse enters data into a customized material tracking system that streamlines and unifies the reporting process across every warehouse, recycling facility and transportation center.

"Many large retailers have created policies prohibiting the remarketing of customer returned products. E-World Online has creatively utilized a network of high-end electronic processors and asset management companies to harvest parts in addition to remarketing and reselling components to extract value from products destined for destruction," said Bob Erie, CEO of E-World Online and founder of its RRP and MITS programs. "Costco has always been a leader and innovator in its industry, and we're very excited to have their National chain of warehouses be the first businesses in the U.S. to adopt the Retail Return Program. While the program is of enormous benefit to a big box retailer like Costco, it can also be scaled either up or down on any continent for any material stream."

E-World Online's Retail Return Program is based on its Manufacturer Interstate Take-back System (MITS), which is key to its simplicity and providing retailers greater control over returned merchandise. MITS has been relied on by consumer electronics manufacturers since 2010 to manage 120 million pounds of e-waste collection and track downstream recycling through its proprietary software system and network of certified electronics recyclers. The proven efficiencies of MITS enable E-World Online's RRP to take the burden off retailers for managing program logistics, providing asset management, ensuring data destruction where needed, finding markets for reusable or recycled parts, and enabling revenue sharing with program stakeholders.

E-World Online's RRP gives retailers the ability to point and direct the disposition of all returned merchandise, not only electronics, so that they can maximize revenue on items that can be resold, as well as provide audited and environmentally compliant recycling on items that cannot.

For more on E-World Online, visit www.e-worldonline.com.

About E-World Online and its Manufacturer Interstate Take-back System (MITS)
E-World Online administers comprehensive e-waste take-back programs across the country for leading consumer electronics manufacturers. The Manufacturer Interstate Take-back System (MITS) network, comprised of either R2- or e-Steward-certified recyclers, will collect an estimated 84 million pounds of e-waste for some of the world's leading consumer electronics manufacturers in 2012. MITS is able to offer services in nearly all 50 states and provides manufacturers with a solution to monitor collection progress in real-time and guides consumers with information about local e-waste recycling options in their communities. E-World Online is a division of E-World Recyclers of Vista, Calif. For more, see www.e-worldonline.com or call (877) 342-6756.