E-Waste, what exactly is it?
E-waste is obsolete or discarded electronic products; such as computers, mobiles, printers, scanners, fax machines and gaming consoles. It also encompasses older products like VCR’s, CD’s, printer cartridges, monitors, memory sticks and external hard-drives. It can also be things like bank cards, server drives, tapes… pretty much anything electronic.
Why should we recycle it?
Well, there’s a few reasons why.
First and foremost, your own personal safety. Over 70% of electronic devices discarded in general waste contains personally identifiable information (PII). This PII contains things like passwords, personal and business data, financial institution credentials, intellectual property, trade secrets and business information – the list goes on. This information can leave you open to identity theft, financial fraud, business espionage and security threats.
Next there’s the threat to the environment. Most electronics contain toxic materials such as lead, zinc, nickel, barium, chromium and many types of flame retardants. Lead in particular can damage the human body – blood, kidneys, central nervous system and more. The hot Australian sun heats up these chemicals and sends them into the atmosphere, leaving traces in the air we breathe, affecting the ozone layer – you can see where this is leading. It can poison the human body by leaching into groundwater and polluting streams, rivers, dams and oceans.
Lastly, there’s the opportunity to reuse some of the components of these products. Gamers love to build their own hard-drives that are capable of handling the power needed for their programs. According to a report from a few years ago, 23 million Australians have unused mobiles sitting in storage at home. Within these mobiles is about 10 tonnes of copper and 300kgs of silver. Copper alone is one of the most reused materials known to man. Silver can be refined and recasted several times over. Glass and plastics can be used over and over.
What can we do?
We can take away all your e-waste and have it safely and securely stripped, wiped and either reused or safely destroyed. One of our brilliant drivers will come collect your old electronics, bring it back to us and we can start destruction. Magnets, water and stripping are some of the ways which we start the process. Using the most up to date processes we will make sure your electronics have no lasting detail of your files at all.