Take Back Programs for Your Company’s End-of-Life Electronic Devices
An average of 220 tons of e-waste is dumped into landfills and incinerators every year in the United States alone. These toxic items constitute as much as two to five percent of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream, and continues to grow rapidly.1
Analog television owners are going digital. Users of Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) computer monitors are quickly transitioning to Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens. DVD players are replacing VCRs, the newest versions of cellular phones are replacing older models, and fax machines are quickly becoming antiquated relics of the past. As our electronic products’ lifecycles are getting shorter and shorter, the stream of obsolete electronic products is only continuing to grow significantly. And with “green” legislation and environmental regulations on the horizon, so too will the importance of handling these devices in an environmentally responsible manner. Named by Recycling Today Magazine as North America’s sixth-largest recycler of end-of-life electronics, Round2 Technologies provides its diverse portfolio of customers—including several Fortune 500 companies-with full-service electronics recovery solutions custom suited to their individual needs. Round2 can create a robust, user-friendly, and potentially revenue-generating take-back program for virtually any size organization’s end-of-life electronics.
Fostering global markets
By instituting an electronics take-back program, a company not only reduces its environmental compliance risks; it also maximizes its revenue and helps inject marketable scrap commodities into a global marketplace. The recovery company will first assess the company’s electronics to assess their market worth as full units versus component parts. This often requires testing, repairing, cosmetic upgrades, and packaging processes. Such value-adding services ultimately maximize the products’ worth in the marketplace. It’s no matter in which stage in the product lifecycle an item may happen to be—whether retail, refurbished/obsolete, damaged, parts/incomplete, or scrap—the company managing your electronics take-back program should always be able to find an appropriate and lucrative market for it.
Round2 is dedicated to extending the life of technology, and believes that even systems beyond repair have value. All items of value—including the component parts, precious metals, and other commodities—are reused in the refurbishment process and then resold to others.
1. www.greencitizen.com/ewaste_crisis.php.
Systems no longer eligible for reuse or repair are often dismantled to recapture the low- and high-grade materials within. Obsolete electronic devices are rife with these commodities, including printed circuit boards, glass, polymers, plastics, rubber, and precious metals. These materials are then sold to specialized processors who shred or melt the materials down, ultimately re-injecting them back into the manufacturing process.
For items with little or no resale value, Round2 recaptures the commodity value by aggregating and selling the material to contracted downstream suppliers fully certified to properly recycle these materials.
Getting Ahead of the Legislative Curve
Stocked as they are with often high-value commodities, end-of-life electronic devices can pose serious environmental risks if not handled correctly. Lead, Mercury, and Cadmium are among the toxic substances highlighted in such European Union directives as the Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS), which restricts the use of six named hazardous substances in the manufacturing process. Closely linked to RoHS and perhaps more practical for our purposes is the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE), which sets recycling and recovery goals for goods as part of a larger effort to curb the amount of toxic substances leaching into the environment as a result of poor electronics disposal tactics. In the United States, the closest thing to this brand of legislation is occurring at the state level. California initially led the pack of, passing SB 20: Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 (EWRA), prohibiting the sale of electronic devices after January 1, 2007 that are prohibited under EU’s RoHS. As is typically the case with environmental legislation that begins on the West coast, the trend is moving east. As California has enforced increasingly stringent restrictions, other states have begun implementing disposal bans on various potentially hazardous electronic products. The Round2 process meets all applicable local, state, and national guidelines for environmental compliance, and employs a strict “no landfill” policy in extracting materials for their commodity metals, plastics, and electronics reclamation value.
As of March 2008, states including Maine, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Oregon, and Minnesota have placed disposal bans on items like desktop computers, monitors, lap tops, and televisions, and the trend continues. Proposed program models such as the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) offer solutions for national programs for the recovery reuse, and recycling of used electronics. While some programs propose that funding come initially by way of an advanced recycling fee (ARF) placed on certain consumer electronics, others prefer a cost internalization model where manufacturers cover the costs of recycling for the electronics. Though no concrete regulations have been passed at the federal level, the prospect of such legislation is considered imminent with future administrations. In the absence of a concrete national electronic waste standard, individual corporate take-back electronics recycling programs allow companies to not only responsibly handle their end-of-life electronic devices, but also do their due diligence in complying with potential environmental legislation down the road. Not only is good for the environment—it’s good for business, too.
Every year, an estimated 400 million units of obsolete electronics are scrapped. By 2010, this figure is expected to rise to 3 billion units.2
Electronics take-back programs don’t only take stockpiled old fax machines, CRT monitors, and CPUs off your hands. By returning these items into the recycling stream, your company is fostering reuse and injecting valuable materials into the marketplace. Corporate take-back programs present an environmentally responsible and potentially lucrative alternative to the traditionally hazardous disposal methods employed by far too many companies.
About Round2 Technologies, Inc.
Round2 Technologies is an industry changing asset disposition and technology recovery company. Round2’s Revenue Based RecyclingSM facilitates the disposal of surplus and obsolete technology in a secure, environmentally compliant process, generating maximum revenue for our clients.
A Unique Perspective. Round2 was founded in 2005 with a vision to bring together expertise in recycling, remarketing, logistics, and processing in the field of eScrap. The reality of this accomplishment enables Round2 to provide clients with solutions that eliminate financial and environmental costs related to asset disposition while protecting them from risk and non-core business distractions.
Customized & Complete Solutions. Round2 delivers unique solutions for each eScrap opportunity. Our comprehensive offering is an end-to-end solution, customizable to meet the unique requirements of our clients. We maintain control over the entire disposition process offering various levels of security, destruction and environmental certification. Round2 Technologies provides eScrap management solutions for small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Round2 currently manages over 500 integrated recycling programs for our customers as we support their growing electronic waste and scrap challenges. Round2 is headquartered in Austin, TX with additional regional processing centers and local collection facilities located across the United States. Contacts Toll Free: 866-6ROUND2 Corp. Main: 512-342-8855 Corp. Fax: 512-342-6955 Dallas Warehouse Main: 972-602-4360 Dallas Warehouse Fax: 972-602-4382 Houston Warehouse: 713-462-5511 Sales: websales@round2.net Purchasing: purchasing@round2.net HR: hr@round2.net Houston: houston@round2.net Dallas: dallas@round2.net 2. www.greencitizen.com/ewaste_crisis.php.