Computer Leasing Company Recycles to Reduce Hazardous ‘E-Waste’
Aug. 28–Obsolete computers no longer get tossed in the trash at CSI Leasing.
The St. Louis computer leasing company is the largest independent computer leasing company in United States, and the first in the metropolitan area to recycle its outdated units. CSI serves businesses across the metro-east as well as on the other side of the Mississippi River.
CSI’s computer refuse is sent to the company’s 63,000-square-foot recycling plant, e-Scrap Processing Center in Earth City, Mo. Since opening in February, workers there demanufacture monitors, remove hazardous chemicals, break down steel, plastic circuit boards, wires, glass, and resell the raw materials to other processors that will rebuild them into new product.
CSI also protects its clients’ proprietary information. When equipment is returned after a lease expires, CSI conducts a data-sanitation procedure to ensure none of the clients’ data from the hard drive can be recovered.
CSI recycles 100 percent of its old and outdated computers. Even the cardboard and shrink-wrap used in transporting units to clients on both sides of the river are recycled and reused.
“When you lease a computer to a corporation, at thousands at a time, we, as a corporation, had to start thinking about, ‘What will we do with all of this equipment that gets returned?’ ” said CSI Leasing Vice President of Market Development Jonathan Zigman. “We realize there is a growing need to deal with this waste problem.”
The landfills overseas are piling up in discarded computers, cell phones and other electronics. Zigman said this waste, referred to as “e-waste,” is the fastest-growing waste category in the world. Eighty percent of the U.S. e-waste is sent offshore to landfills in China and India.
CSI estimates that 63 million personal computers will become obsolete this year and a total 400 million computerized gadgets will be discarded on a yearly basis by 2010. Zigman said toxic chemicals from computer monitors, such as mercury, cadmium and lead, could seep into the water table if dumped into landfills.
“It’s a huge issue of environmental protection from hazardous waste materials and junk waste,” Zigman said. “Over time, we developed a policy for dealing with equipment. Our goal was to create a zero landfill-type environment where there is nothing we need to recycle ends up in the a landfill in the U.S. or revert these materials from computers for landfills overseas.”
CSI charges its clients a fee, usually $10, to recycle computers. The company recycles 200,000 pounds a month and recently recycled its 1,000,000th pound.
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