| Q:
Why are recycling computers and other electronics
necessary? Why
not just throw them away.
A:
There are a number of reasons why you should
recycle instead of just throwing away your electronics.
The most critical is that electronics not
disposed of properly can be harmful to the environment.
There are a lot of toxic materials in electronics
that could potentially leach into the ground and
possibly into our drinking water.
Another important reason is to keep the amount of
trash in our landfills down.
There are literally millions of electronics being
disposed of every year.
If properly recycled the amount of trash sent to
our landfills will be just that much less.
Q:
What security steps are taken to prevent my personal
information from being distributed into the public?
A: Our
top priority is to make sure information is not spread
to the public. We
actually have 4 security levels for information removal.
How we do this is a hard drive or storage
device is completely wiped clean up to Department of
Defense Standards by using professional sanitizing
software. This
will completely eliminate all existence of the prior
user and all previous programs (including operating
system). The
drive is also written over with a series of 1’s and
0’s as an added precaution. If you feel that this is
not enough security we can also shred your hard drive
rendering it unusable and unrecognizable.
All drives that can not be securely wiped will be
shredded or rendered unusable.
For more info please visit our security page.
Q: Some other recyclers are formatting or crashing the partition tables. Is this a proper security method?
A: Absolutely not! Formatting a drive does not remove data. Even after a format all your information can be completely recoverable with cheap or even free software. Crashing the partition tables is no better. To be secure the drive information needs to be erased and wrote over.
Q:
How will we know that the information in our
hard drive(s) have been securely removed?
A: The
programs that we use saves information about the
security work done to the hard drives. Once the information is securely removed from the drives the
information will be sent back to you. (Recycling Verification purchase needed)
Q:
Why do you need 4 security levels to remove information
off of a hard drive?
A: 4 levels
of security are necessary because not everyone uses
there hard drive to store there personal or confidential
information. The
typical consumer might not need as secure of data
removal as a large company.
Government agencies and financial institutions
like banks or lending companies are required to remove
information to Department of Defense standards.
Q.
Do you charge for higher security removal and
how much is it?
A. Our
single security removal wipe is included with a $4 computer recycle. Washington State recycling program customers will have there hard drives shredded by a Washington State approved dismantler. We
have a 3 wipe and a 7 wipe that we do charge to perform.
The reason for this is the time that it takes to
perform each wipe. Depending on the hard drive it could take up to 7 hours to
securely wipe each machine.
For pricing and more information please visit our
security
page.
Q:
Other recyclers are charging to recycle electronics.
Why does Recycle Techs accept some items for free?
A: At Recycle Techs we believe that people
are more likely to properly recycle their retired
equipment if it is affordable.
Not every person or company has a large budget
set aside for the recycling of their used equipment.
Granted we are not able to accept every item for
free. For
example, we will accept some good working CRT monitor for
free but non-working CRT’s are not always easy or cost
effective to fix. What
we do is just pass on the recycling charges to you
without jacking up the price.
Q:
How does the US regulate how electronics can
be disposed?
A: Different
laws are coming into effect every year about how to
recycle electronics.
Not every state has strictly enforced good
recycling practices but the US has recognized that there
is a problem and is going through the appropriate steps
to correct this issue.
Each state can have different rules and
regulations about recycling so please check with your
local EPA office for details.
Q: How can
you recycle systems for so cheap?
A: Most
of our profits are from rebuilding and reselling the
system. We are not physically breaking down every system
brought in to be recycled which costs recyclers time
and money. Instead
we try to reuse as much of the system as possible. This created a market for older used systems which are still
in demand. Another
reason is that we resell the systems typically to single
users or smaller companies and not try to sell pallets
of systems at a fraction of its going price.
|
