Environment

Our Commitments

• All scrap and broken repair parts and electronics will be recycled or disposed of in an environmentally safe way. Our goal is to have nearly zero of our e-waste going into landfills.
• We will accept from you and recycle all old and broken computers, laptops, cell phones, batteries, game systems, and other small electronics so that we can be a convenient place for you to drop off your e-waste. (No TVs, please.)
• We will inform our clients who mention their e-waste about their options and will encourage them to allow us to dispose of their waste responsibly.  

Circuit of Life: Recycling

All of us do it at one point or another: throwing away an old computer because it’s just too outdated or a cell phone because we’ve received an upgrade. Sure, those devices might still power on, but who’s going to want such old equipment when new models come out every month? Back in 1997, computers were expected to have a 6-year life span. Now, it’s 2 years. Cell phones are expected to be replaced every 1.5-2 years. Just about everybody owns one of each. Multiply that trash by every person in the U.S. alone, and you’re looking at tens of millions of devices thrown away each year. The industry calls that end-of-life material “e-waste,” and it’s the fastest growing kind of waste we consumers are putting into our garbage cans.

Most of what we throw away is recyclable. Even if the devices can’t be refurbished and renewed, they can still be melted down into many precious metals such as gold, copper, cadmium, mercury and lead. As of 2009, the EPA estimates that only 25% of all e-waste was recycled. Of all e-waste recycled, only 8% were cell phones. Now here’s the scary part: even though e-waste represents only 2% of all trash in landfills, it represents 70% of ALL toxic waste. Those metals I mentioned? They are extremely toxic when they are incinerated by landfills and pushed into our ground, water, and air. Even small amounts can cause severe nerve, brain, and other organ damage. What’s worse is that the waste continues to grow. When we make efforts to recycle, this problem doesn’t have to be the cost of living in a more connected world.

We here at Wisp think that it’s our obligation to you, ourselves, and our environment to recycle every bit of e-waste we create. Our goal is to have almost zero e-waste, and we’d love to help you reach your goals as well. Whether it’s through education, repairing, refurbishing, or giving scrap electronics to recycling facilities, we want to do our part to help and set a standard for our industry.