Thread: Any Dedicated E-Waste Recycling Programs at Your Facilities?

Quite a few self-storage operations are implementing formal, dedicated electronics recycling (or e-waste) programs at their facilties. The growth of e-waste has become a hot topic in many industries. According to some stats, e-waste (outdated or inoperable electronics like computers, microwaves, mobile phones, etc.) now comprises 5% of all municipal solid waste worldwide and amasses 20-50 million tons of trash each year. Self-storage recycling efforts have come up periodically here in the forum, but we haven't had a specific discussion about these e-waste recycling programs and whether or not they are worth giving up a unit for waste collection in exchange for the added exposure and good will in the community.

I'd love to hear some thoughts from those of you who have experience with an e-waste recycling program at any or all of your facilities. While most of these programs are free to the facility, does your contract with the supplier include stipulations that make business difficult or challenging (commitment to a specific number of months, etc.)? How easily can people deposit recycables into your dedicated unit or bin? How disruptive to paying customers is collection by the supplier? What are the leverageable benefits to the facility? Are you able to collect the names of those who deposit electronics for recycling? If so, what's the rate of converting those community members into storage customers?

Do tell.

I have been working with GreenspotDropoff for a couple years now. We have a dedicated 10x20 with giant boxes to hold the ewaste. People come in during business hours. They have to provide their contact info as a state requirement. Then we escort them to the unit, and they must unload their items. For liability, we are not allowed to help them.

Then, when we get full we schedule a pickup. Our local school gets money from every load, so that is a community bonus. Also, it brings our facility to the awareness of many people who might otherwise never know we exist. I think it's a great program and very easy to use.

We already have people bringing tons of junk into storage now. I tried being an E-Waste site and it was waste of time and effort. Do you really want the general public seeing us as a recycling center?

Originally Posted by hurlco

We already have people bringing tons of junk into storage now. I tried being an E-Waste site and it was waste of time and effort. Do you really want the general public seeing us as a recycling center?

We got a call about this a few months ago, I passed. We had gotten our facility involved in the community in other ways that were just more beneficial.
One of these ventures got us entered into a poll for the best customer service in our town back in April, we won out of 64 businesses which led to news paper and online story exposure and ISS even picked up the story.
I didn't see where doing this was really going to add any thing for us, but I guess it works for some.

I think we the people at our stage can be involved at recycling waste programs. the waste that is collected the most is paper, cartons etc. they are dumped but actually they are recycled and converted into Durable Cardboard Boxes or Corrugated Boxes that are mainly used in shipping industries, food and packaging industries, etc.
So, we must protect our mother earth and stop using plastics in any form and only use paper that can be recycled and used again and again.

I worked with GreenspotDropoff for well over a year - it didn't work out.

It started off great - we used an empty 10 x 15 and had great response from the community with lots of stuff coming in. GreenspotDropoff was prompt with the pickup when the unit was full.

After about a year the pickup were getting to be a problem - it would take 5 or 6 calls and a month or two!

I was also getting too many calls from business trying to drop off truck loads of stuff on us. They would get upset when they were told we could not handle a simi load of e-waste. GreenspotDropoff was no help in these situations.

I finally told them I was dropping the program as it was more trouble then it was worth - In over a year I managed to get one rental out of it and it went to auction as they never paid after move in.

It was a great idea and it would have worked had GreenspotDropoff been able to hold up their end of the deal.

If I were to get back into storage would I work with them again, maybe, but I would have to have some assurances from them in writing first - I wont get stuck with 6 pallets of e-waste taking months to get rid of properly.