Every home has one, the forbidden drawer or closet loaded with electronics that haven’t been used in months, or even worse, years! This is considered our personal stash of electronic waste. As our technology continues to advance, these piles are only becoming more prominent, forcing us to reconsider why it’s important to recycle electronics.
Recycling electronics has become more critical, mainly because it’s an environmental issue. The lifespan of electronics becomes shorter and shorter while our pile of electronics continues to grow every year. Electronic recycling is essential, and its benefits should be addressed and taken more seriously.
As you continue reading below, we’ll discuss ten reasons why it’s important to recycle electronics
What is E-Waste?
Electronically waste is a piece of equipment that has been disposed of. This includes items such as broken or working electronics that are thrown in the trash or donated. If the electronics are not resold, they’re often thrown away.
Electronic waste is dangerous to our environment due to the toxic chemicals inside the materials that can make their way into our air, soil, and water. Some everyday electronic waste items include home appliances, information technology devices, home entertainment devices, and office and medical equipment.
10 Reasons Why it’s Essential to Recycle Electronics in Atlanta
Here are ten reasons why it’s essential to recycle electronics in Atlanta.
1. Provides Communities With Refurbished Electronics
When we recycle electronics, they can be refurbished and used for future use. A refurbished electronic device is an electronic device that has been repaired so it can be sold to the public. Refurbished electronics are excellent for reducing costs for the community and helping the environment.
One of the most significant benefits of refurbished electronics is its reduced cost. Refurbished electronics cost less than new electronics, making them an affordable option for our communities. When you recycle electronics in Atlanta, they can turn into refurbished electronics and can provide you with savings of 50% or more.
Refurbished electronics go through a thorough testing process before they can be resold. They’re also environmentally friendly. When the community buys a refurbished product, they’ll have a working product that would be in excellent condition.
2. Creates New Jobs
When companies recycle electronics in Atlanta, it creates new job opportunities for the industry. Nearly every organization has an electronic, whether it’s a computer, laptop, tablet, cellphone, etc. Federal regulations prohibit disposing of electronic devices through landfills or a garbage collection service.
Recycling electronics is becoming more popular than just throwing away your electronics in the trash. According to the Coalition for American Electronics Recycling, electronic disposal is due to increase the number of jobs created by 42,000. Most electronics today are still being improperly disposed of through our landfills, which increases the amount of toxins within our environment.
When electronics are recycled, they go to a recycling center where they’re sorted and processed. For every one thousand tons of electronics recycled, this creates thirty jobs in our landfills, fifteen recycling jobs, and two hundred repairing jobs.
The mere fact that recycling electronics have come a long way and created so many jobs in a short amount of time indicates just how essential recycling electronics is. Electronic recycling is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
3. Less Contamination to Our Ecosystems
Every year, people are upgrading their electronics for newer and faster models, but what happens to your old electronics? Are they sitting around your house or sitting in a landfill somewhere? There are several ways electronics can affect our environment.
If you don’t recycle, the materials that are used to build specific devices can poison the soil surrounding the landfills with lead and mercury. These components are incredibly toxic to the environment. When electronics are exposed to heat, these toxic chemicals are released into the environment and into the air, making one of its most significant impacts.
The great news is it’s easy to recycle electronics in Atlanta. Recycling electronics can help the environment and help create new jobs, which we covered earlier. It not only helps conserve more energy but helps recycle copper, silver, and other natural resources.
At Beyond Surplus, we make it our mission to provide an environmentally responsible way to recycle electronics the proper way.
4. Complies With E-Waste Laws
According to the EPA, twenty-five states currently have electronic recycling legislation—the first state to pass a law when recycling electronics was California in 2003. Since then, other states have begun to follow.
As states continue to struggle with electronic recycling laws, there are some methods they strive to enforce. First, states must make collection details specific, specifying what you’re legally required to do. Next, encourage rural collection as it is cost-effective in urban communities.
Third, prohibit all electronics from being thrown out in landfills. States that have implemented landfill laws have seen electronic recycling increase. Lastly, make recycling electronics as broad as possible, encouraging more people to recycle their electronics.
5. Improves the Reputation of Your Business
Showing how committed you are to caring for the environment by recycling electronics says a lot about your business’s reputation with your current and potential customers. Companies that are committed to helping protect the environment have been proven to outperform organizations that don’t. They are also more likely to attract excellent business partners and customers.
Implementing electronic recycling is one of the best ways you can boost the reputation of your business. Not only can it increase the reputation of your business, but it can make your employees happier too! In fact, more employees are beginning to expect electronic recycling within the workplace.
When you recycle electronics in Atlanta, you can create sustainable policies that will help you retain employees and prevent turnovers, making your employees happier and more productive.
6. Spreads Awareness
Electronic recycling is a vital issue that requires us as a collective whole to participate. For effective electronic recycling, we must spread proper recycling awareness. It’s essential to bring attention to recycling electronics because of how harmful electronic waste to the environment can be.
With sufficient electronic recycling campaigns and other programs, you can assist in educating the public about the importance of electronic recycling. By collaborating with both private and public sectors, you can ensure that people are responsibly recycling their electronics.
With formal and informal integration, you can ensure that electronic waste is being recycled appropriately and efficiently spread awareness. As we collectively work together, we can ensure that electronics are being recycled the correct way and that our environment remains protected.
7. Cost-Effective & Reduces Our Carbon Footprint
So is electronic recycling cost-effective? Let’s take a dive in and discuss a tad more. The recycling industry has turned into a highly profitable business, bringing in over $100 billion worldwide. However, this amount all comes down to several factors.
Many of these electronics contain natural components such as copper and aluminum. Due to the current market, this places electronic recycling up with the price of oil. Organizations will want to buy the cheapest electronics when in a free-market system to maximize their profits.
Recycled electronics only have value if oil prices increase, only because it’s too expensive to use new materials. When the cost of electronics barely budges, the cost of making the electronics tends to shift as prices fluctuate.
If you’re a household that has many electronic devices, you can also help reduce your carbon footprint by recycling your electronics. If you lack the knowledge of how your business and employees are consuming resources, this makes understanding the environment difficult.
To effectively reduce your carbon footprint, you should rely on experts to create a well-developed plan to promote environmental health across your organization.
8. Safeguard Company Information
When you go to recycle electronics in Atlanta, you’ll want to safeguard your company information prior to recycling. Before discarding your computer, cellphone, tablet, or other company device, there are specific preparations you should take.
When recycling your company phone, you should disconnect from your service provider and download all of your contacts, photos, and other essential information. Afterwards, you’ll want to perform a factory reset on the phone.
When recycling a company computer, you’ll want to back up all of your information on a hard drive or cloud-based system, then wipe your hard drive.
Many times people try to perform a factory reset on their computers to wipe data; however, this isn’t an effective method and only removes your computer’s ability to find data. If someone has a data recovery program, they can easily access your data.
While every organization should be participating in safe electronic recycling practices, discarding your electronics by just throwing them in the trash can risk even the most sensitive information. Even if your electronics can no longer turn on, others still have the capability to access your stored data.
When you send your electronics to Beyond Surplus, you can rest comfortably knowing that your data is in safe hands due to data regulations that must be followed before your device can be touched. While there is always a chance of your data being compromised, the chances are slim when you use a reputable recycling business!
Organizations should always use electronic recycling to prevent losing company data. Your business secrets, data, and customer data (which we’ll get into below) may be stolen, which can ruin your company’s reputation. Recycle all of your electronics and keep your company data safe.
9. Safeguard Customer’s Personal Data
When recycling electronics, your company will want to ensure you follow the proper disposal rules to ensure your customer’s personal data remains safe. One of the most well-known customer breaches occurred with Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley attempted to cut on costs when selecting a moving company for one of their decommissioning projects. Their electronics were not correctly disposed of, nor was their data wiped, which resulted in $60 million in fines, followed by another $35 million in penalties.
When recycling a computer with customer data, ensure you’re correctly backing up your data using a USB drive or external drive. Many organizations are opting for cloud-based services when it comes to backing up their data. Now that you’ve backed up your customer’s data, you’ll want to deal with data privacy.
Before recycling a computer with customer information, you’ll want to ensure you’ve taken the proper steps to ensure the data remains protected and has been completely wiped from your recycled device.
If you risk leaving any customer information behind, you might find yourself dealing with an unwanted lawsuit.
10. Supports Extended Producer Responsibility
Rounding off our list of why it’s essential to recycle electronics is because it supports Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR.) EPR is a more sustainable strategy that holds manufacturers liable for life-cycle prices that relate to electronics, including their disposal costs.
EPR encourages eco-friendly processes and electronics. Manufacturers can support extended producer responsibility by refurbishing electronics and recycling their electronics. One significant component of an EPR strategy is using non-toxic and recyclable materials.
Extended Producer Responsibility remains one of the most effective strategies because the manufacturer has total financial and legal responsibility for their electronics. This is one of the reasons why they earn an incentive to promote non-toxic and recyclable products.
In addition, the environmental factors that are associated with electronic waste continue to be a significant concern to professionals. With recycling and extended producer responsibility, we can help cut down on electronic waste.
Why It’s Important to Recycle Electronics in Atlanta: FAQ
1. Why is it important to recycle computers?
It’s essential to recycle computers because it protects the natural environment.
2. Why is it so important to recycle?
It’s vital to recycle so we can reduce the amount of waste that is sent to our landfills.
3. Why is it important to recycle iPads?
It’s crucial to recycle iPads because of the environmental risks from harmful toxins such as lead and mercury.
4. How do electronic devices affect the environment?
Electronic devices can become toxic to our environment because they’re non-biodegradable and can accumulate in our soil, air, and water.
