What Certification Won't Do

There's been a lot of discussion in the ITAD and e-waste recycling community lately concerning certification.

There's no doubt in my mind that certification to some standard is still better than no certification at all. I've seen the evidence for this all too many times in my two decades in this industry.

But the topic has arisen whether the major standards - e-Stewards and R2 (SERI) - really address both both customer and certification-holder needs, and whether it may make sense to create a single, more unified standard.

From one perspective, it may benefit all stakeholders to have competition in the certification space, driving indepedent standards to innovate and refine in order to better meet the market's evolving needs.

However, it certainly has been difficult for both customers and solution providers to choose. For customers, knowing which standard reflects their needs and values, and whether the standards really deliver what they are promising.

For ITAD or e-waste recycling providers, maintaining multiple certification standards is dificult, typically requiring one or more full-time employees just to manage all the paperwork, audits, and resolve conflicts and overlaps to make sure processes conform to the standards in the cert. Usually, they are forced to choose one standard, based upon business and market needs, and their own perspective on the industry.

I'm not sure I have all the right solutions to these issues, but thinking from the customer's point of view, I can tell you, in my experience, what certification won't do:

• It won't guarantee your provider is doing the right thing. Just Google the words "e-waste" and "fraud".
• It won’t guarantee that your provider is doing the right thing around reuse. They can recycle everything that comes through the door as end-of-life, or have an ineffectual reuse program, and that won't affect their certification status. Reuse is always the highest and best form of recycling.
• Certification doesn’t guarantee any single asset is being managed properly – can you see your asset’s status real-time in a customer portal? If not, how do you know what really happens to it, and how it’s processed?
• It doesn’t guarantee that they are a good employer. Talk to their employees and find out their take on how the facility is run and whether it operates with their well-being in mind.
• It doesn't guarantee that they do any actual recycling. Do they process material inhouse or do they mostly act as an intermediary? If they don’t have equipment to shred material or don't have a team tearing down equipment, they probably don’t do much actual recycling. It can be perfectly ok to be an intermediary for many materials, no recycling operations can do everything, but it's important to know what they actually DO, and how they are representing what they DO.

Many aspects of well-run facility, in my opinion, must exceed the minimum requirements of a certification standard. A well-run facility should be innovating and staying abreast of technology, standards, and practices that are leading edge and applicable into the ITAD and e-waste processing space.

Ask to look at all their downstream paperwork, not just for your own shipments, projects or assets.

Know your provider, do surprise audits and site visits - They should be willing to open their doors to you at any time.

It’s more work, but it’s very much worth it to be an informed customer and verify your trust in your ITAD/e-waste recycling solution provider. In the end, it's still up to you, the customer, to be discerning, ask questions, and know how your IT equipment or electronics are being managed. It's your reputation on the line.