If you're a business owner looking for a simple way to show your customers that you care, hard drive recycling is a great way to do just that. It's an easy win with both your local community and the environment. But before you jump on board with hard drive recycling, it's important to know the facts about this environmentally conscious practice — both good and bad. Here are five things every business owner should know about hard drive recycling.
1. Hard drive recycling is good for the environment
When you’re getting rid of an old hard drive, it’s good to make sure that it’s properly recycled. Hard drives contain a lot of sensitive information, so it’s important that you make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.These items include passwords, encryption keys, and confidential information such as account/bank information. One quick way to eliminate any risk of being screwed with a hard drive is by turning it over to the recycling center for proper disposal.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will only require your recycling center — and anyone else handling your hard drive — to take action if there’s post-consumer debris found in the landfill or if there are other discrepancies. This means they can’t just throw an old hard drive away without making sure that it isn’t filled with personal information or evidence of potential contamination while it was sitting around. Consumers are more likely to be concerned if their information sounds like it just came from a wild party, so make sure to clean up your hard drive before recycling it. Beyond contamination, hard drive recycling also focuses on putting less strain on landfills compared to other junk-disposal methods. Using a recyclable hard drive can reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills. Do your environmental a favor and recycle every hard drive you can!
Before containers made of glass or plastic, people generally recycle hard drives. According to a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fact sheet, people should place hard drives in a safe place to protect them from physical damage or getting into the wrong hands, like a recycling center. Not only can you recycle your hard drive, but you can further reduce your hard drive waste through better hard drive recycling.
Hard drive recycling finds a quick and easy solution for those looking to reduce hard drive waste, but it doesn’t do much for those looking to reduce e-waste and actually tackle climate change.
2. Hard drive recycling can save you money
Did you know that you can get paid for recycling your hard drives? Well, you can! As you probably know, the hard drives in your computer contain a lot of personal information. If you just throw your computer away, you could be giving away a lot of information to people you don’t want looking into your life. You could also be giving away money.But making money isn’t the only reason you should recycle your hard drives.
If you had enough hard drive space available for what you actually need, then you would be able to create data of any kind in your hard drive. But people who recycle their hard drive space can often create much more than they need. For example, the number of photos you need stored on your hard drive can range from one to 1,200. But if you recycle your hard drive space, you can theoretically store over 30,000 photos! That means you are essentially wasting space. Companies often purchase certain hard drive space that they know will be mostly used for currently owned photos. However, if you spent 30,000 hours — that is more than 326 years — storing your photos in your hard drive, then you could potentially be wasting 5 hours of data storage. Don’t be a data hoarder — recycle your hard drive space instead!
In December 2010, USB-IF, the technical organization that oversees the USB standard, made some really bold claims about the environmental benefits of recycling your hard drives. The USB-IF report stated that the following claimed environmental benefits of hard drive recycling would result from the recycling of 5.54 million hard drives (producing approximately 75,000 terabytes of free storage for the environment):
2011 was a really big year for recycling. Hard drive recycling more than doubled in 2011, and it likely accelerated in 2012 as well. Setting aside the environmental benefits claims, regular hard drive recycling is more economical than disposing of those hard drives.
Here are some stats to back up these claims. In 2011, hard drives recycled in the U.S. accounted for nearly 13% of the total global hard drive recycling.
3. Hard drives can contain sensitive information
Back up your data to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Hard drives can fail and if yours has confidential material on it, it could fall into the wrong hands. You never know what might happen, so make sure you back up your data.
AssemblyLine offers women-owned small businesses the possibility to “recycle” their Hard Disks when no longer needed for a specific task. Moreover, they get to keep 100 percent of their EQBH rewards. This service is also good for anyone who might need some extra storage for virtual events, one-time purchases, and electronic files like PDFs.
If you decide to recycle your hard drive, then you must also empty the chamber to allow space for gases and dust to escape from the spinning disk. This can take a bit of time and create a smell, but it can be worth it considering the weight and size of the hard drive. If the job is stuck-tackle (i.e. no easy option), then things could get a little more difficult.
Others also recommend disposing of your hard drive by posting it somewhere safe (preferably a dumpster) or throwing it in the recycling center. To know if this is an option in your city or country, contact your municipality and ask about hard drive recycling options. Check with your post office to see if they take them or if they allow you to safely dispose of them in the trash.
Living together. So many people working from home these days. It can become difficult to maintain personal space and reach for personal items. For some people, hard drive recycling can help remedy this issue, especially if it’s one of the few items they’re able to bring with them to work. Others extend the use of their hard drives to organize their documents and organized schedules to reduce the need for meetings. It also speeds up the work flow.
Does it cost more to hard disk recycle compared to disposing of the device in the trash? Not necessarily.
4. You need to follow the law when recycling hard drives
When you’re disposing of hard drives, it’s important to follow the law. If you’re a business, you need to contact your city or county to find out the laws and regulations regarding hard drive disposal.It may also help to obtain legal advice before disposing of hard drives yourself.
Many hard drive manufacturers make recycling materials that are compatible with recycle bins. Some manufacturers make “green drive” recycling discs specifically for recycling aluminum. It’s also important to know the recycling process for other types of relevant electronics (e.g., computers, cellphones, tablets) before recycling your hard drives. And if you’re clinging onto your old laptops, you can use one of many good options for recycling them, including old external hard drives that you can recycle, as well as your laptop battery. All good stuff to know before you send those old hard drives into the recycling bin.
For many years, hard drive manufacturers sold radiation-cleaning brushes, magnets, and isopropyl alcohol wipes to make hard drives safer for recycling — all claims that were false for many years because hard drives aren’t radiation-clean, according to a report by CleanTechnica. (Hard drives can get contaminated during recycling, but not during the manufacture.) Over the years, manufacturers stopped including radiation-cleaning brushes, magnets, and isopropyl alcohol wipes in their recycling bins — and the products that manufacturers use instead aren’t the same. The particles produced by a hard drive is unlikely to become aerosols when they fall to the ground — instead, they get lodged in hard drive trays, where they can come in contact with people or pets. Some spinning facilities use low-temperature and bio-degradable stripping methods, which can reduce contamination, according to CDI International. As long as hard drive manufacturing doesn’t result in an aerosol threat, environmentally conscious consumers shouldn’t be too bothered if they run into recycling-related issues when they recycle hard drives.
If you run an electronics recycling business, know that hard drive recycling is not a cure-all.
5. Hard drive manufacturers are responsible for recycling their own products
Hard drive manufacturers are required to recycle their own products in Europe and the US. This means that you can contact the manufacturer of your hard drive to get it recycled. For example, WD has a recycling portal where you can find a drop off location near you.
If you’re looking to recycle your hard drive, you need to ask some questions, know the specifications of the hard drive you have, and understand when, where, and how you can recycle it. If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry, Autoslideshow is here to help. While traditional hard drive recycling centers overlook small electronics like mice, CD or DVD writers, USB flash drives, and Monitors — Autoslideshow has a comprehensive collection tool just for hard drives.
Along with a simple search, you can use the site to sort your hard drive by manufacturer, model, sizes, and capabilities. Autoslideshow will even show you photos of what recycling centers have recovered from different manufacturers. To recycle your drive, all you need to do is empty the contents of the drive, connect it to a USB device — preferably your computer if you have one — and make a copy of the data to your computer. Autoslideshow will then notify you when the recycle process is complete, and you can get your items back by sticking them into a proper recycling program.
There’s no need to wait until the end of your computer’s life; most hard drive recycling centers can get your drive sorted and ready to be sent off to a recycling center on the same day. Some manufacturers offer notifications to let you know when your hard drive has reached your local recycling center so you can make arrangements with them ahead of time.
Most of the time, hard drive recycling centers are much more affordable than buying your hard drive refurbished. However, sometimes this can be more expensive than sending your recyclable hard drive to a recycling center, so you should always check and double-check the details of the program you’re considering.
