Electronic Recyclers International (ERI), the nation’s biggest e-waste recycler and developer of the world’s largest e-waste shredder, is responsible for de-manufacturing and repurposing more than 200 million pounds of electronic waste each year. Before ERI came on the scene, the process of keeping electronic devices out of the waste stream was largely left to consumers, retailers and manufacturers. Without systems and protocols in place, the process of e-waste recycling was so disorganized and costly, companies and consumers essentially chose an out-of-sight, out-of-mind sensibility for dealing with “obsolete” electronics — even those that have been proven to pose an environmental and human health hazard.

Founding ERI

Before establishing ERI in 2002, John Shegerian was a founding partner at FinancialAid.com, one of the country’s biggest financial aid companies for students. Although the site was successful by Wall Street standards, the mounds of paperwork and spectacular bureaucratic inefficiencies led Shegerian and partners to gladly sell the business. Now with a gaping hole in their professional schedules, coupled with their commitment to social responsibility and years of experience converting start-ups into hugely successful businesses, the partners felt it was time to focus their energies on a project that could positively define their collective legacy.

ERI Manpower

Chief Operating Officer Tammy Shegerian runs daily ERI operations and oversees sales. For more than two decades, she helped corporations increase growth and revenue. Chief Marketing Officer, Kevin J. Dillon, was instrumental in making ERI a nationally influential corporation. Aaron Blum, Chief Compliance Officer, was recently named an EPEAT Advisory Council member. EPEAT is an organization that is creating a comprehensive system for identifying and rating green electronics. At ERI, Blum is responsible for working with Fortune 500 companies to develop e-waste programs and achieve recycling goals.

Additional members of the ERI management team, roughly 23 in all, include veterans of the EPA and top environmental protection specialists with hazardous and solid waste regulatory compliance experience. The company is headquartered in Fresno, California and has offices in Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas and Washington. In all, ERI employs more than 700 individuals.

Show Me the Green

“People tell me I work in the garbage business,” Shegerian said in 2007 when he was featured on CNBC’s “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.” EScrap — outdated PDAs and printers, analog televisions and last year’s cell phones — is ERI’s reason for existing. Today, it doesn’t take much for a gadget to be labeled obsolete. In a 2013 article about e-waste, the New York Times reported that the average American replaces their cell phone every 22 months. An estimated 5% of the waste stream in American cities is comprised of discarded electronic products. That number grows about 5% faster than all other waste streams. With the largest volume e-waste recycling and shredding technologies in the world, ERI is planning to keep pace with what is essentially their industry’s growth potential.

Power of Re-Purposing

Shegerian is not new to the process of re-purposing. He even applies the concept to helping people. In 1992, following one of the century’s most explosive riots, Shegerian helped found Homeboy Tortillas in South Central Los Angeles to give kids, and gang members, an alternative to life on the streets.

Today, Homeboy Tortillas, now known as Homeboy Industries, is an incredibly successful non-profit that offers dozens of youth, family and community programs, from tattoo removal to a farmers market. For his role in helping found the organization, in 2008 Shegerian was named a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award recipient.

Electronic Recyclers International Services

Since the start of operations in 2002, ERI has recycled more than a billion pounds of e-waste. Their services include:

  • End of life electronic recycling
  • Asset registration and sanitation
  • Sorting and storage
  • In-store take-back and return recycling solutions
  • Commodity Aggregation and disposition
  • IT Asset Disposition
  • Programs for manufacturer responsibility and recycling

Electronic Recyclers International, a one-source national recycling solution, serves every zip code in the United States. For more information about the company’s services and groundbreaking technologies, visit them at www.electronicrecyclers.com.