Countries in the developing world have been taken over by digital waste from the west. Computer equipment, mobile phones and more have been shipped out to huge e-waste dumps in China and Ghana and much of this activity is illegal.
It is believed that over 50,000,000 tonnes of unwanted electrical and electronic equipment ends up in the dumping grounds in both Guiyu in China and Agbogbloshie in Ghana. Some of the equipment is rebuild or redeveloped and sold on whilst the rest is broken down into component parts. Some of this can be sold on to manufacturers in raw form whilst some is simply left as toxic waste.
In the UK all businesses have a legal requirement to ensure their waste electrical and electronic equipment is disposed of responsibly but this obviously isn’t happening in every instance.
The Environmental Protection Agency figures state that recycling just 1 million mobile phone handsets, and many more are thrown out each year, 50lbs of gold, 550lbs of silver, 20lbs of palladium and over 20,000lbs of copper could be salvaged. The process of salvaging all these materials has become known as urban mining and there is so much digital junk being thrown into waste dumps in the developing world, we are all losing out.
Recycling your waste electronic and electrical equipment as a business person is an absolute legal necessity. Simply throwing it away or using a general recycling company does not ensure your waste has been dealt with properly and you could be in contravention of the law.
Instead it makes sense to work with a professional IT recycling company who guarantee responsible disposal of your equipment. Our services cover this for your entire stock of office equipment and we also ensure that you receive a fee for handing your items over to us.
We analyse and assess all your equipment and give you a quote based on the prices we can get for resale, ensuring none of your equipment is simply thrown on the landfill or shipped to an e-dump in the developing world.
Wherever possible we find ways of reselling your equipment rather than simply breaking it down for parts. A huge proportion of computer equipment which is just thrown out could actually be reused and utilising a professional service like ours means you get some cash back as well.
Cash Back for your Computer Equipment
Rather than potentially acting illegally and contributing to the already considerable problems the developing world has to contend with, your business will benefit from responsibly recycling old computers. The computer recycling London companies and those across the UK need can be provided by our specialists.
As well as cash back for your old IT hardware, we offer a full data erasure service you can be sure that even if your items are resold there is no need to worry about security features.
Giving the developing world a chance to overcome the masses of toxic e-waste building up on their land is something we should all try to do.
