How to Create a Sustainable Ewaste Recycling Program

As a business owner, you strive to keep your company as green as possible. In fact, corporate sustainability has always been a top priority for you and your team. So, why not implement an electronic waste recycling plan as one of your next big corporate ewaste solutions?

It’s simple: Instead of tossing old office electronics into the dumpster, you can help the earth and protect your company’s private data at the same time with a recycling plan!

In this article, you’ll learn:

• What an eWaste recycling program is
• What electronics are recyclable
• Basic criteria for an electronics recycling plan
• How to dispose of electronics safely
• How to protect your data
• How you can reap the benefits of recycling

Ready to do your part to help save the earth and protect your company’s assets? Let’s dig in.

What is an Ewaste Recycling Plan?

An ewaste recycling plan is a type of sustainability effort or program that seeks to collect old electronics from around the corporation and safely dispose of them through a certified electronics recycling company. After all, it’s no secret that recycling electronics aids in environmental protection.

Over the last decade, the consumption of electronics has boomed. Unfortunately, with the use of more devices comes more discarded products collectively known as ewaste. In fact, experts predict that 74 million tons of electronic waste will be generated by 2030.

When disposed of improperly, ewaste can lead to some serious health dangers to both us and our environment. This is why it is so important for businesses, big and small, to implement a strong recycling program that aims to protect our environment from the negative effects of ewaste.

Benefits of Recycling Ewaste

As businesses become more and more reliant on electronics to help them get the job done, it is our job to ensure these devices don’t end up leaching deadly toxins into landfills at the end of their lifecycle.

That’s where ewaste recycling comes into play. When your business enacts the right measures, you will reap the many benefits of recycling ewaste, including:

• Environmental preservation
• Human, plant, and animal health protection
• Personal and private data security

Yes, you heard us correctly! When you recycle your electronics with certified ewaste recyclers, they will make sure to wipe your devices clean and ensure no one can steal your data.

Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it? So, how can you set up an ewaste recycling business plan as part of your corporate ewaste solutions?

5 Key Ingredients for a Successful Recycling Plan

Pull out your pen and paper, it’s time to take some notes! In this section, you’ll learn exactly what you need to know and do to create a lasting ewaste recycling business plan for your corporation.

First things first, it’s important to know exactly what kind of electronics you can recycle.

1. Get In the Know: What Electronics Can You Recycle?

As technology continues to advance every year, businesses begin to replace their old office electronics with new ones. If your company has a build-up of old devices that it doesn’t use anymore, you can collect them and recycle them!

Here are some common office electronics that you can recycle:

• Computers
• Audio-video equipment
• Monitors
• Circuit boards
• Peripherals
• Telephone equipment
• Cellphones
• Tablets
• DVD players

If you have some devices that you are unsure about, you can always call a local electronics recycling facility to see if they are eligible for recycling.

2. Set Up the Basic Criteria for Your Ewaste Recycling Plan

Now that you know what kind of electronics you can recycle, you are ready to draft your plan.

For starters, take an inventory of all the old electronics you have built up around your company. How many retired devices do you have? How big is the equipment? Is it just a few devices or do you have a large accumulation of electronics?

Next, ask yourself these vital questions:

• Do you operate several businesses around the city, state, and/or country?
• If so, who are you going to appoint to be in charge of this initiative to ensure all locations adopt the plan?
• How often are you going to collect old electronics to recycle them? Quarterly? Annually? Every 5 years?
• Where are you going to store old electronics before you are ready to recycle them?
• Do you need an ewaste recycling company to pick up heavy electronics for you?
• Is your team willing to take part in this new initiative?

This leads us to our next point…

Get Your Team in on the New Game Plan

During this process, be sure to schedule a team meeting with your employees to generate new ideas and get them on board with your plan. Remember, when your team has a say in how new protocols will work, it is often way easier to implement it and keep it running smoothly in the long term.

Once you answer these questions, you can begin to organize your thoughts and set up a personalized game plan for your business.

3. Learn How to Dispose of Ewaste Properly

As you finalize your master plan, you will need to know how to dispose of your ewaste properly. Simply put, all you need to do is collect your old electronics and send them to an established electronics recycling company.

How Electronics are Recycled

Once your electronics make it to the facility, the staff will undergo a series of procedures to take apart your devices. During this process, the scrap metal from your electronics will be sorted and recycled. Then, any rare earth minerals and elements that can be salvaged and repurposed will be taken out and recycled as well.

This is an integral step in the ewaste disposal process because these minerals and elements are often very toxic. With that being said, if they are not disposed of properly, they can end up back in our environment and can cause some serious damages, including mercury poisoning.

4. Protect Your Data

When you partner with the right electronics recycler, they will make sure all of your data and assets on your old electronics are thoroughly wiped clean. From DOD level wiping to physical destruction, your data will be gone.

Upon request, you can ask the company for a Certificate of Destruction to ensure your devices are properly destroyed. This process is extremely important because complete data destruction leaves zero chance for identity theft.

5. Choose the Right ITAD and Electronics Recycling Company

Last but not least, you need to find the best place to take your electronic devices for recycling. To start, research eligible electronics recycling companies in your area. If you have a lot of heavy devices, check to see if the recycler will pick up your electronics for you.

Next, the right recycling facility will have a number of sustainability certifications that make sure your electronics are mindfully recycled.

Finally, the recycler you choose should also have IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) certifications and offer superb data protection services. That way, you can trust them to properly eliminate your private information.

Incorporate Great Lakes Electronics into Your Recycling Plan

Congratulations! You now have a sustainable electronics recycling business plan that you can introduce as an integral part of your corporate electronics disposal and recycling solutions.

If you are searching for the perfect electronics recycling company to partner with, look no further than Great Lakes Electronics Corporation. For years, it has been our mission to provide environmentally friendly recycling of electronic products, including old office electronics. We serve customers in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois with our trucks and nationwide with our accredited freight partners.