Goods go to golfing

NEWPORT BEACH — Bill Killingsworth and Joyce Smith cleaned up in more ways than one Friday morning at the Newport Beach Country Club.

The Irvine housemates had heard about “Swing for the Green,” the new recycling program at the Toshiba Classic in which patrons can bring a piece of used electronic equipment from home and get a pair of free day passes to the golf tournament. Killingsworth and Smith rooted through their home and showed up at the gate with a used laptop — which promptly joined old VCRs, a pile of cellphones and a massive computer monitor at the table.

“It’s just kind of been sitting in the garage for a while,” said Killingsworth, a management consultant, who added that he couldn’t even remember how old the laptop was.

“We thought somebody might have a use for it,” added Smith, a mortgage loan officer.

The Toshiba company, which started in 1939 in Japan, has provided the world with a number of technological breakthroughs in the last 70 years; among the items on the company’s resume are Japan’s first fluorescent lamps, radars and microwave ovens, as well as the world’s first laptops and the development of the first DVDs.

Toshiba, though, also has a history of commitment to the environment — and officials from the company’s Irvine branch had that in mind when they launched “Swing for the Green” Friday. The program is scheduled to continue today and Sunday, with drop-off sites open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Newport Beach Country Club and the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort and Marina parking lot.

“There’s actually been a huge response from people,” said Eric Paulsen, a spokesman for Toshiba. “When we made the announcement Tuesday, the phones were ringing off the hook.”

The recycling program accepts a large number of items, but a few devices are not accepted, including televisions, microwave ovens, refrigerators and other major household appliances. Visit www.toshiba.com for a longer list of ineligible items.

Regardless, Kristina Esquivel, a Toshiba spokeswoman who supervised the country club drop-off site Friday, said about 150 people brought goods in to be recycled Friday. She expected her booth to fill throughout the weekend.

“Some people come up who didn’t know about it and say, ‘I have a garage full of stuff I could have brought,’” she said. “A lot of them are planning to come back tomorrow.”

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com. MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.