You’ve seen the footage–in a recent TFI blog and elsewhere–of shockingly hazardous recycling methods by poor people in China, India, Ghana, and elsewhere around the world. And if the emotional appeal doesn’t sufficiently motivate your company’s management to double ensure that your products are recycled safely, then consider that yours and your customers’ labels are intact when spotted by reporters, non-government organizations, and other watchdogs. An electronics company’s hard-earned positive brand can be blistered faster than a hand-burned circuit board by “casual recyclers” mining $5 of copper.
Earlier this year, Morgan Johnson of Sims Recycling Solutions (with headquarters in the UK, US, and Australia) spearheaded the purchase of an Internet-based software system that tracks and traces recycled electronics regardless of where products originate, get recycled, or are “touched” en-route. From this WebView Overview, you can see how electronic products in regions as far flung as Malaysia, New Zealand, and Germany are traced by customer, product type, and recycling result.
If you read our blogs at all you know that TFI has been monitoring and forecasting manufacturing outsourcing for the electronics industry, now for 21 years. It’s time that the industry turns its attention to the outsourcing of electronics recycling. Someone in France gives end-of-life electronics to his brother in law, who gives it to…and then…, and now where is your logo lurking?
“Sims doesn’t outsource as much as some other recyclers,” says Morgan Johnson. “Many electronics companies are far flung and are going even further. Normally, insufficient control is asserted over these distant facilities’ e-waste practices; it’s handled locally and not centrally controlled. Better is a consistent service around the globe.”
This blog’s title comes from WNYW’s 10 O’Clock News, which years ago each night began with the simple, but now-famous announcement: “It’s 10:00 p.m. … Do you know where your children are?” Well, it’s 2008 and with responsible recyclers and tracking software available, let’s never again have to wonder where our used electronics end up.
We’d like to hear from you: Do you think it is responsible to have your company’s electronics recycled, without knowing where in the world they are going? And what can be done about it?
P.S. Do you want to take a survey on product reuse and recycling, and receive 2 reports for having done so?
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Where do the recycled components go? The expensive ones often end up as refurbished and are resold into the secondary market.
Just when the industry is waking up to the spectre of counterfeits, e-waste initiatives threaten to spawn a whole new wave of refurbished parts.
Pam makes an excellent point here. It was very disheartening to learn that donating or taking my old electronics the local recycler could easily lead to the very horrible outcome described in recent news reports, namely children burning old electronics in open air settings in poor countries, releasing toxins into the environment and poisoning themselves in the process. We try to do the right thing, to no avail. As Pam’s entry suggests, we need to be more aware of the consequences of our consumption and a stronger system to ensure that electronics are disposed of properly. Protecting brand names is one important motivation for a better system, but I still worry that piles of unbranded or weakly branded products will fall through the cracks, even if A-list compnaies step up to the plate. If this isn’t a case for some sort of global regulatory system, with teeth, I don’t know what is. In the meantime, the pile of old electronics in my basement grows…
I believe that the manufacturer’s should share most responsibility in the disposal of computers. When computers are being replaced with updated ones as fast as they are purchased; whom is making all the money. A recycling location should be identified and supplied with each sale of a computer for disposal upon its demise/replacement and paid for by the manufacturer to insure proper disposal. This is horrible to see and hear what has happened with these old electronics, however, I am pleased to hear the news about the internet based software system that tracks and traces recycled electronics (better late than never); how about that application at point of purchase?