subject: Is Your Computer Recycling Company Legitimate? [print this page] With the problem of increasing computer waste around the globe, computer recycling is becoming increasingly popular with both consumers and companies. This is great news for the environment because the more computer recycling companies open up, the higher the chances that a person will recycle his old computer instead of just throwing it away. The recycling industry has hardly kept pace with the rapidly growing computer market, so it is high time the gap be narrowed down. Even though many consumers are aware of the environmental impact of throwing away an old computer, they seldom recycle because it is not straightforward.
How responsible they are in properly treating such waste can alone help us enjoy the benefits of recycling. Many illegitimate companies have also emerged that hope to make money off computer recycling in ways that are neither legal nor ethical. Recycling through such companies will not help protect the environment from further damage, making it important to check the legitimacy of a computer recycling company.
Unfortunately, this has led many companies to adapt illegal and unethical methods for recycling. For example, many companies, instead of recycling all the computer waste, send a significant part of it offshore to developing countries. The waste can be extremely harmful in such cases for the people living in these countries who do not have well defined waste disposal and treatment. The toxins can easily pollute the water and the same water is supplied to households because many of these countries do not have the technology to detect and filter water of these harmful chemicals. In addition, if this waste is recycled in a developing country, there are many environmental costs like shipping that need to be considered.
Users should also check the legitimacy of their computer recycling companies because computers can contain a lot of private data. Many users simply don't bother to delete their hard drive especially if the computer is not in a working condition. These companies can thus extract sensitive information like bank account details, credit cards, social security numbers, etc. and in the wrong hands this can be a huge problem. There are many people on the internet selling and buying this sensitive data and you would certainly not want your personal data to be traded this way. The recycling company should make sure to completely destroy the hard disk so that it is completely safe and disposed off with no possibility of any data recovery. This is usually done by simply melting the hard disk.
A good check to ensure the legitimacy of a recycling company is to enforce the company to maintain records.If a company keeps note of all the old computers they are recycling and where they are sent during each stage of recycling and also how they are being recycled, it can be trusted to be recycling in the environmental friendly way. People should therefore take extra care in noting that the recycling companies to which they send their old computers keep records.
