Recycling e-waste creates jobs for professional recyclers and refurbishers and creates new markets for the valuable components that are dismantled.
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The e-waste business is getting bigger.
The recycling of electronic waste is a rapidly expanding industry around the world and particularly here in the United States. E-waste is usually comprised of old computers, printers, laptops, and other electronic devices such as tablets and smartphones.
Recent research provided by Miami’s Compliance Group notes that there is a massive surge of mergers and acquisitions currently underway of several larger groups of investors with huge corporations who are realizing the potential long term financial benefits of capitalizing on the increasing “green” movement.
As nearly every office cubicle has a computer.
As nearly every office cubicle in America now houses a computer or laptop, the need for computer recycling is consistently rising. Governmental regulations prevent disposal of these types of electronic devices through the traditional form of landfills or municipal garbage collection services.
Legal disposal of electronics are sometimes hard to find.
As computer technology continues to advance at a rapid pace and as the costs of these products continue to become more competitive and affordable, local businesses and offices are constantly upgrading to newer systems as a standard method of maintaining corporation efficiency and productivity. As a result, legal disposal methods of the older electronic waste are becoming increasingly more difficult to locate.
Upgrading of tech is getting faster.
But while these systems are still very affordable, many businesses are finding the need to upgrade at a much faster rate than in years past. And with the national economy still in a state of fluctuation and instability, many IT managers and corporate executives are looking for ways to extract some portion of their initial investment from these older systems. Computer recycling is becoming a more popular alternative than simply tossing away this electronic waste because the owners can at least receive the satisfaction of doing the ethical thing went it comes to electronic disposal.
The industry of electronic recycling is growing.
The Coalition for American Electronics Recycling, or CAER, believes that the need for adequate computer disposal will increase to such a high level in the next few years that as many as 42,000 new jobs can be created annually, resulting in over $1 billion of additional payroll being generated. This is one reason why CAER has seen an increase in membership by such notable waste disposal conglomerates as Waste Management, Sims Recycling Solutions, Alcoa, Glencore Xstrata, and many, many others.
Too much of this e-waste is end up in our landfill.
Further research offered by California’s Isidore Electronic Recycling estimates that between 50% to 80% of the electronic waste that is currently being collected in the United States with the intentions of recycling is actually being exported abroad, usually to somewhere in Asia. But only 25% of this exported e-waste actually goes through the computer recycling process. Most of the items are being disposed of improperly through landfills or incineration methods which release massive amounts of dangerous toxins into the land, sea, and air.
electronic waste disposal processes and manage them here at home. They are working in partnership with California’s penal system to provide training to the prison population in the specifics of computer waste and recycling.
California uses the penal system work as recyclers.
Currently, nearly 60% of all recently released criminals in California will return to prison within 3 short years. This is primarily due to a lack of employment opportunities for persons with a criminal past. Isidore is hoping to not only make the environment a much greener place, but hopes to tackle a very difficult societal issue at the same time by using computer recycling as a conduit.