GreenCitizen: Thinking globally and recycling locally

So the new video iPad is out, wonder what will happen to all those old iPods that will be replaced?

When companies donate systems, monitors and other hardware to charities what happens to those items when the charity is done with them?

What is your company doing with all of it's old equipment?

What happens to the data on your company's old hard drives when they are recycled?

A lot of PCs end up in the third world where people are paid subpar wages to extract resources from the parts using methods that are dangerous and highly damaging to the environment.

Charities that rely on donations for their computer and electronic equipment, most likely, cannot afford to pay for those systems to be recycled...where do they end up?

Today I met a man named James Kao who has come up with a local solution to the problem. His answer, his dream, is GreenCitizen, a local electronics recycling depot behind the Fry's on El Camino in Palo Alto. James is an ambitious entrepreneur with several startups under his belt.

His ultimate goal isn't to be the Bay Area's computer recycling solution, but really to help the world by coming up with affordable solutions to manage equipment from cradle to cradle, as he calls it. Basically, I think that his aim is to see that eventually all electronics continue to live on for as long as they are useful, either in their original form or as part of new items.

I learned about his company after I had seen the signs while visiting Fry's, but didn't really know what services they offered until the dad of my best friend told me about it. This week I had to get rid of all of Tomlinson Zisko's old and dead equipment. We had 20+ PCs, as many unused toner cartridges, almost as many CRT monitors as well as other miscellaneous items.

GreenCitizen's services were immediately intriguing to me when I saw that they offered hard drive destruction as an add-on service. They overwrite the entire drive with random data, going over the entire writeable service of the drive 3 times. Then they drill several holes in the drive. That's the local "step 1" of their destruction process. After that, the drives are shipped to another destruction facility where they are basically shredded.

They also offered pick-up service, which was also good for us since we had so much stuff.

The cost was also pretty agreeable. To buy the recycling kit from Dell or others, when you buy a new PC, it's usually $35 and that might not even cover the cost of shipment and certainly doesn't include wiping the hard drive. GreenCitizen charges $10 for the PC, $1 for the keyboard, something like $5 for a printer and a nominal shipping charge for the CRT. To destroy the data on a hard drive they charge $15. So for a PC and the normal accessories you pay something like $35, but get a lot more as that price includes your printer and destruction of your hard drive. I'd call that a good value by comparison.

Did I have any complaints about the process? All in all, it was a really smooth experience. They keep you informed through email when the drives are destroyed and give you a certificate of destruction. An inventory of all items recycled are also provided to you. If I had a critique of the operation, I think that they could have more visible security procedures in place when dealing with hard drives, plus some type of bonding process or some other guarantee that your data won't get stolen. But that's minor as I did feel that they were taking as much care as they could with our old drives.

At any rate, if you live in the Bay Area and are looking to get rid of an old PC, or have just gone through a complete upgrade at your organization, give James and GreenCitizen a call. You'll be glad you did.

For those that are elsewhere in the country or world, don't be surprised if you see a GreenCitizen near you soon. Oh and I talked to James about blogging. He's a natural for it as he's passionate about his business, authoritative and has plenty to say. So let's hope that he starts one up and gets his message out to the masses.