image by AlbySpace

What began as a simple question—Hmm…I wonder if Greendisk would recycle my spent lithium ion laptop battery?—led to a nearly two-hour phone conversation with Greendisk’s enthusiastic and visionary CEO, David Beschen. I found out much more than I had anticipated. Greendisk is organized in a way that cooperates with existing businesses and non-profits to make electronic waste recycling a seamless last step in the life cycle of techno trash—computers, VCR’s, laptops, cell phones, CD’s, peripherals, VHS tapes, batteries, etc.

Besides answering my question, David explained to me how Greendisk puts the spotlight on the first “R” of the Waste Hierarchy (Reduce), and has created a structure to handle discarded electronic waste while not creating anything material. Greendisk accepts a large variety of techno trash, the most extensive list of any e-waste recycler in the US.  They are skilled at directing this trash from individual and commercial sources to be sorted and consolidated into component parts.

Volume is the key word in recycling. Recyclers won’t take “handfuls” of e-waste from you or me—they deal in truckloads. So Greendisk serves to consolidate a few computers here and a box of cell phones there into amounts that recyclers/remanufacturers will accept.

Greendisk acts as a liaison by preparing materials from individual consumers and corporations for resale to recyclers for the next step. Preparation entails destruction of any intellectual property and sorting into different components. The Lower East side Ecology Center (LESEC) sends all their media (floppies, CDs, zips, VHS tapes) to Greendisk which is how I heard about them. I sent 18 pounds of old VHS tapes, remote controls, and dead phones through the mail at the cheapest “media mail” rate through their Pack-It service. 

Greendisk bases their collection structure on rule #1 which is don’t make it if you don’t have to and select qualified people to do each task. Therefore, they do not have their own fleet of trucks to pick up the material. Instead they have a relationship with Fed Ex and USPS to pick up material at the end of delivery runs (as is convenient for them). This material is an end of life product, so it’s not time sensitive. It can be leisurely shipped. Available space on trucks is utilized with material that would otherwise be garbage, but is turned into a recoverable material instead. This is example of how Greendisk works to integrate systems: using underutilized resources. Materials are sent at an appropriately slow pace.

Who destroys all this personal data and sorts the stuff you may ask? Greendisk has eight depots (with plans to increase up to 25!) located throughout the country where materials are shipped. They are located near or at non-profit organizations that employ disabled individuals who are trained on destroying the data and sorting. They don’t necessarily do the work the quickest or most efficiently, but the work is done according to their needs, to create work, not automation, with existing resources.

Greendisk strives to understand the downstream customer. They seek to look at the whole agenda of an existing client and then adjust themselves to their client’s needs. This becomes the most efficient, ecological way to recover recyclable materials.

Movie/music/software companies are very important customers, too. Their need is to destroy prototypes and practice work as they evolve through research and development. They need written documentation that media was destroyed, so Greendisk destroys all intellectual property, and the record becomes proof of proper disposal and recycling.

David Beschem has several more projects in the works. One is helping companies fund recycling bins through already established advertising budgets. In this way advertising can be linked to green pursuits. This visibility also functions to increase worker retention rates, as a growing number of employees consciously look for employers to participate in green practices. He also has been working with USPS to create a “green rate” which would be the cheapest rate of all, to encourage consumers to send old media for recycling. He told me that there are 75 million VCRs sitting unused on garage shelves, and few recycling companies who will process them. But Greendisk does.

I was impressed with David Beschen’s excitement not only for recovering materials, but more importantly for linking existing groups of people in a ways that honors their respective needs and links them in a network that is mutually beneficial.  That’s the gem of what his team is creating.