Electronic recyclers catch the wave of tech growth
An influx of new technology has left companies scrambling to determine how best to dispose of outdated machines and the information contained within them.
The proliferation of everything from computers and cell phones to televisions and tablets has made electronics the fastest-growing segment of the recycling industry, said Eric Harris, director of governmental and international affairs for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) in Washington, D.C.
“People want the new gadgets and the new equipment,” Harris said. “The recyclers stand by, ready and willing to take back the old material.”
Indeed, the electronics recycling industry has grown from 6,000 employees and $1 billion in U.S. sales in 2002 to more than 45,000 employees and $20.6 billion in sales today, according to the ISRI.
Electronics recycling is expected to spike in early 2014 as virtually all companies phase out Windows XP before Microsoft is expected to cut off upgrades and security protection for the operating system April 8, said Trave Harmon, president and CEO of Triton Technologies in Worcester. Beyond that, BCC Research of Wellesley expects the amount of electronics being disposed of will grow at an annual rate of 8 percent for the indefinite future.
As technology grows
“Every citizen in this country now has an electronic device with sensitive or private information,” Harris said.
This technological churn has given rise to new laws governing both how electronics should be discarded and what should be done with data stored on those unwanted machines.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) led the way in the mid-2000s after mortgage and insurance companies were caught disposing of customer applications in dumpsters, leaving Social Security numbers and other personal information exposed, said Barbara Anthony, Massachusetts' undersecretary of consumer affairs and business regulation.
Following the 2007 theft of consumer data at Framingham-based TJX Cos., the commonwealth took FTC regulations and applied them across all sectors, Anthony said, mandating the destruction of all paper or electronic documents containing personal information so that there would be no way the data could be read or reconstructed.
And a 2010 law allows Massachusetts citizens to sue businesses directly in the event of a data breach rather than only being able to report the violation to the attorney general's office, Harmon said. Businesses can be fined $5,000 per violation if a judge determines they didn't have proper safeguards in place or didn't do enough to mitigate the damage, Harmon said.
Most states require recycling
Twenty-six states have enacted laws since 2005 requiring the recycling of all electronic waste, said Chris Ryan, president of Worcester-based Metech Recycling, with product manufacturers typically responsible for covering recycling costs.
Massachusetts, however, is not one of those states, Ryan said. The commonwealth only requires electronic waste recycling for businesses.
Residents in many Bay State municipalities are therefore unable to recycle electronics for free except during special “take back” events, Ryan said.
All commonwealth residents are barred from taking devices with cathode ray tubes (CRTs) — such as older, bulky gray computer monitors — to landfills or transfer stations. It costs $10 to $13 to recycle a monitor with a CRT, said Anthony Altieri, a technician at ProTechs Computer Solutions in Leominster.
Businesses have two options when seeking to destroy data on a hard drive, which is typically the size of a deck of playing cards: physically shred the drive or erase the information with a deep format, which is supposed to make a hard drive “factory new.”
Hard drives can be physically obliterated by using a pneumatic press to drill three holes into the device or by chopping the drive into small pieces. This destroys the value of the hard drive — typically worth $50 for a laptop — but provides companies with peace of mind by guaranteeing there's nothing left, Ryan said.
Altieri recommends that companies go in this direction, since bits of data can still remain after a deep format.
A deep format can be carried out either by outside technology experts or by the IT department of a large or mid-sized company.
Bob Houghton, interim executive director of Seattle-based e-Stewards, said software allows for automated tracking of a deep format, creating an audit trail; conversely, physical destruction of a hard drive isn't necessary for good security and is more prone to human error if a drive is overlooked.
Whatever the method, businesses are increasingly stipulating that data be destroyed before the hard drive leaves company premises, Altieri said.
Experts recommend looking for electronics recyclers certified by either the R2 or e-Stewards standards so that the recyclers are subject to regular audits. The certification processes were launched in 2009 and 2010, and 166 recycling facilities nationwide were certified to at least one of the standards as of September 2011, according to the federal Government Accountability Office.
Houghton said the e-Stewards certification indicates that electronic scrap is processed domestically rather than dumped onto a developing country, where the unprocessed metals often contaminate the groundwater or are handled by child labor without adequate protections.
At least 70 percent of the electronic waste given to U.S. recyclers is shipped to developing countries before it's processed, according to e-Stewards. This saves the recycler money, Houghton said, but opens businesses up to bad publicity if they're caught.
“It's impossible to maintain anonymity if your stuff ends up in one of these places,” he said.
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