How to Choose An Electronics Recycling Center

You have all those old computers piling up in a corner of your storage room. What to do with them is the question you keep asking yourself. You can’t and shouldn’t want to put them in a landfill – that’s not a good place for them and it’s not a good place as far as the environment is concerned.

Every so often in the local newspaper, you see a recycling event and you plan to take all your old computers to it and dispose of them – make more room to store other items. Then, the day comes and goes, and you either forget, you’re too busy, or you’re out of town. And so your old computers continue to sit, taking up valuable space in your home or office.

What is an Electronics Recycling Center?

You don’t have time in your busy day to worry about computer hard drive or data destruction. An electronics recycling center is a facility for just such purposes that you need. Transportation issues? Can’t lift all those heavy components? They will come to you. They will pick up your old computers and hard drives and transport them, safely and securely, out of your facility and back to theirs for certifiable data destruction.

Recycling Certificates

You want to choose a facility where each team member involved with your data has been trained and instructed as to the correct procedure in which to ensure your data is securely destroyed. Your data will be protected and you will get a certificate that attests to that face. For the State of California, certificates from the following organizations are appropriate: CEWID from CalRecycle, DTSC, and the California Integrated Waste Management Board.

Regulations

Ensuring the safe destruction of sensitive data has garnered much attention over the past several years. Regulations have been put into place to protect you and protect your data from ending up somewhere it isn’t supposed to be. EPA, DTSC, and ITAR regulations involve a series of procedures to safeguard your data from becoming public information (think Edward Snowden). Choose an electronics recycling center that can meet those standards.

Reporting Documents

Reports go along with certificates as a matter of course for ensuring your e-waste has been properly recycled or destroyed. A video of the destruction can be helpful as well. A Consolidated Report and Ad Hoc Reporting are also assets to have and hold. In some cases, an Environmental Impact Report may be requested and a good electronics recycling center can provide these reports.

An electronics recycling center can be of great assistance in correctly and properly handling your sensitive data taken from computer hard drives and ensuring it is destroyed so that no one else can access it ever again.