In any office, whether it’s offices in a towering building or a home office, there are dozens of tech accessories that wear out each year. Some of the most common hardware and software add-ons are:
- Bluetooth speakers
- Cables and wires
- Earbuds
- Phone and tablet chargers
- Power strips
- Security cameras
- USB sticks and backup drives
- Wireless headphones and microphones
- Wireless mouse and keyboard
Each time you get a new rechargeable item like a smartphone, tablet, headset, camera, remote, etc., you also get new USB cables and bricks. None of this is meant to be thrown away. Your office needs to recycle these accessories.
People don’t often understand how to recycle these items. ERI‘s guide helps you understand where they go and what happens to them when they leave your office.
Why Recycle Tech Accessories?
Charging cables, printer cables, bricks, power bars, and many other accessories contain metals that can be reused to make new items. Copper is one of the most prevalent. It’s estimated that a charging cable for a smartphone can have several grams of copper.
Copper strands are braided or twisted together and coated in a plastic jacket, which protects the wire from water and keeps you from touching bare metal. When they no longer work effectively, metal and plastic found in these cables and wires are recyclable.
While copper is the most common metal found in cables, other tech accessories contain metals like these in the batteries or parts of the device:
- Aluminum
- Gold
- Manganese
- Silver
- Steel
- Tungsten
- Zinc
Plus, there are batteries in some of these accessories. A lithium-ion or other rechargeable battery has additional materials that do not belong in the trash.
If you look back just 1965, the nation’s Solid Waste Disposal Act mandated the transition from dumps to sanitary landfills. In 1979, open-air landfills were banned and landfills became lined with high-density polyethylene liners, though some landfills still had compacted clay liners.
Today, landfills must have leachate management systems to prevent the liquids and methane generated through decomposition from leaching into the soil, groundwater, and air. Even with these measures in place, they will eventually fail. It may take hundreds or thousands of years before a system fails, but the things we throw into the trash today will become a future ancestor’s headache.
Before you even throw something away, you should determine if it’s better to give it to a local organization. The headsets you no longer use might be incredibly useful at a local school.
If everyone takes steps to protect the environment from hazards like e-waste, it will be a better place in the future. That’s why even tech accessories need to be recycled and not thrown out.
What Happens to Recycled Accessories?
When you have computer cables, chargers, and other accessories to recycle, they go to a recycling center for sorting and processing. If they still work, they could be reused by someone in need of low-cost or free tech accessories. You may feel a charging cable is too slow for your device, but someone with an older device appreciates it.
If a wire or cable doesn’t work or isn’t needed, the plastic covering is stripped and set aside for plastic recycling. Recycled plastic can be melted down and mixed with additional plastic to make new items. The metal strands are melted down for reuse.
Electronic waste must be sorted as best as possible. If you end up with different alloys mixed together, the strength may not be as reliable. The use of robotics and AI is making e-recycling more precise. Plus, robotics and AI can sort recycled materials faster, which lowers the amount of energy consumed for sorting and separating.
Once a recycler has sorted and processed tech accessories, they’re packaged to go to companies that make new items. Copper is one of the best materials to reuse as its quality doesn’t degrade over time. It can be reused over and over without losing performance ability.
After materials are melted down, copper can be turned into new wire and other copper components. It can be reused an indefinite number of times, making it one of the most valuable recycled metals. Instead of damaging the earth and wildlife by mining copper ore, you can keep reusing it and protecting the environment.
Find a Responsible, Certified Recycler
Only half of the states in the U.S. mandate electronics recycling. Even if your state doesn’t, you should do your part and keep e-waste from landfills where the metals could eventually end up in the soil and groundwater.
Responsible recycling begins by finding the right electronics recycling partner. If a company takes your electronics and immediately sends them to an impoverished country for processing, there’s an increased chance of child labor, poor worker protection, and pollution in soil and water. Do your part and look for a recycler who is R2 and e-Stewards certified to ensure materials are processed correctly while prioritizing environmental and human safety.
You should consider what you need to recycle and how you want to handle the process. You may be able to drop them off at your local recycling center, though businesses are often charged a recycling fee. Some recycling centers only offer free electronics recycling to individuals.
If you have tech devices like computers, storage devices, servers, phones, and tablets also in need of recycling, it might be beneficial to have ERI come to your office to destroy data first, especially if you store sensitive data in your hard drives and storage devices. You do not want PII or SPII to end up in the wrong hands.
While ERI destroys data and packages up your electronics for recycling, you can also recycle all of the accessories at the same time. If you have electronics with remaining value, the value of those helps offset the cost of paying to have data destroyed by a professional ITAD firm.
A cost-effective option is to buy a box from ERI and package up your office’s tech accessories. That box includes shipping to our nearest facility for recycling. It’s an easy way to recycle your cables and other peripherals at once.
With eight certified e-waste recycling and ITAD facilities in the U.S., ERI is your go-to provider of tech accessories recycling. Reach us online to learn more about how easy it is for your company to recycle your tech in a responsible, environmentally friendly way.