“Think Recycle” – the Recycling of Electronic  Waste. ( 13 September, 2011)
By David Lowery
“Think Recycle” is a division of Greentec, a leading provider of e-waste recycling and reverse logistics services. Kimberly Hoover started her talk by showing a picture of a Shipping Container full of electronic waste, to illustrate how effectively their program is working. Environmental responsibility is central to their efforts. The business started out in 1995 by recycling the ink cartridges from printers, and grew from there, to recycle all electronic waste. Check out the web site www.thinkrecycle.com where partnership programs are available for collecting e-waste across North America.
 
Typical partners in the recycling program are Schools,  Businesses and organisations such as The Canadian Diabetes Society, in addition to City Transfer Stations. Whilst “Green” is the trend, it needs to be the “Norm”. Partners in the recycling program earn money from their efforts. Twenty cents to $150 dollars can be earned by the collector, for qualifying   items  such as Cell Phones, Print Cartridges, MP3 players, Laptops & Digital Cameras.
 
Items collected by “Think Recycle” are sorted   into a “Refurb.” category, or dismantled to scrap. Think recycle is also a partner with American Forests and The Canada Tree Foundation, and will sponsor the planting of one tree for every 24 qualifying cell phones or print cartridges received.
 
To date, they have over 20,000 registered partners and have sponsored the planting of over 30,000 Trees in North America.
Electronic Items that selected for “refurb” have any memory data “blanked”. Such items could end up in local Refurb.  Outlets but most will be shipped overseas, where possible. Think Recycle is focused on expanding their recycling program, and the Company is  Certified  to ISO 14001.