How to scrap electronics and other e-waste. When you own a business and you have scrap electronics lying around you don’t trust just anyone with them.
There could still be sensitive data within the scrap electronics that could lead to problems for your customers or even your business.
Hard drives can be recovered and potentially damaging data could be on them including account numbers and maybe even social security numbers.
That’s why with the proper preparation and a thorough screening process you can find the right computer recycling services.
Deciding to learn how to scrap electronics can definitely be rewarding because like scrap metal, electronics recyclers will pay you money for your old electronics.
There are plenty of free software’s out there that you can download to wipe a hard drive or if you want to be extra careful, you can pay for a really thorough software to wipe hard drives.
It’s a simple process of putting the CD in and booting from the CD then selecting the drive to wipe.
Doing this ensures that no matter what the electronics recycling services do with the hard drives none of your pertinent data will be recoverable.
This is for your safety and privacy so you know nothing is left on those hard drives. If you happened to just find some electronics while out scrapping, you do not have to worry about doing this.
Destroy them on site or off site? Most computer recycling services will give you one or both of these options. If you have already cleared the information from the hard drives you should be safe letting them take the equipment off site.
Again, if you are just scrapping electronics that you picked up off the side of the road, you can just sell the scrap electronics outright.
Sign the contract which states that you transfer ownership to the electronics recycling company.
Even though they are taking your electronics, they are still considered your property unless you sign a contract so you must get everything in writing.
Electronics recyclers do not have the space like they have available on their websites to list prices for items that they accept in the phonebook.
While searching try and locate recyclers close to your area.
Some electronics recyclers even offer free pickup and will pay you on the spot for your old computer items.
One final thing that you should know about as you learn how to scrap electronics is most all computers have a ton of gold within them.
Gold is used for various components such as the rams, motherboard, microprocessor, hard drive, cd-rom drive and many of the connectors are plated with gold.
I have an article here that discusses what items inside of a computer are made of gold.
Read that article as well because if you can become skilled enough to remove the gold yourself, you can make more money than a scrap electronic recycler will pay you.