E-waste Creating Employment

Recycling e-waste creates jobs for professional recyclers and refurbishers and creates new markets for the valuable components that are dismantled. ( Tweet)

Kelly Sampson

The e-waste business is getting bigger.

The?recycling of electronic waste?is a rapidly expanding industry worldwide, particularly here in the United States.??E-waste?usually comprises old computers, printers, laptops, and other electronic devices such as tablets and smartphones.?

Recent research provided by Miami’s Compliance Group notes a massive surge of mergers and acquisitions currently underway of several more extensive groups of investors with giant corporations who realize 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 the disposal of these types of electronic devices through the traditional form of landfills or municipal garbage collection services.??

Legal disposal of electronics is 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 ends up in our landfills.

Further research offered by California’s Isidore Electronics 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 goes through the computer recycling process.?Most of the items are disposed of improperly through landfills or incineration methods which release massive amounts of dangerous toxins into the land, sea, and air.

California uses the penal system to work as recyclers.

Currently, nearly 60% of all recently released criminals in California will return to prison within three 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. Still, he hopes to tackle a complicated societal issue at the same time by using computer recycling as a conduit.