How to create a better office environment with furniture, supplies, and products

Yesterday I talked about some e-waste basics and today we should move on to who you can trust to dispose your e-waste.

I mentioned I was thinking about this yesterday due to eWeek’s green issue. In their front news stories (scroll down to Not in my back yard) they had an interesting bit about companies who claim to recycle or solve end of life IT issues but merely ship off old tech trash to other countries. Obviously that’s not ok especially when you consider just how junk heavy the U.S is.

eWeek recommends a good long session of reading at The Basel Action Network (BAN) --  a company who combats toxic waste dumping in other countries. BAN estimates that maybe as much as 80% of U.S e-waste ends up on foreign shores. Worse yet, most people running office e-waste projects or even huge company e-waste management have no clue; sort of out of sight out of mind.

eWeek also recommended this BAN report; Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia as a jumping off point to learning more and I have to agree. This is a really great read on the state of office tech recycling and where it’s gone horribly wrong.

So who can you trust to actually recycle your tech trash without worrying that small children in other countries will have to use it for a playground?

eWeek is featuring a company called NextPhase that seems pretty cool. Among other things NextPhase offers tech recycling and, “Partners with only EPA-recognized contractors for waste disposal and certifies that toxic materials are discarded in an environmentally friendly compliant manner. Upon completion of this process a Certificate of Destruction will be issued.” So it does seem on the up and up.

If you visit BAN you can view their E-Stewards list; noted by BAN as North America's most Responsible Recyclers. They’ve all made the Electronics Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship to BAN (who of course has thoroughly checked them out).

Another option is to research the Rethink Initiative;  a place where you can find information, tools and solutions that make it easy – and possibly profitable to find new users for no longer needed computers and electronics. You’ll also find out more about responsibly recycling unwanted technology. This is a user friendly solution for home office dwellers as well.

Recycling is good news except for when recycling is considered throwing our stuff into someone else’s home. It’s never ok to be that sort of green so make sure you know where your tech recycling is headed when you turn it over.

Do you know where your office technology recycling is headed? Which companies do you use?