All of our electronics need to be replaced at some point. Electronics that aren’t properly disposed of end up in landfills and release dangerous chemicals into the air, soil, and water. In addition to finding something to replace your old electronics and figure out how to get them safely recycled, you also have to make sure that all of your important data is completely wiped off of it. Steve Smith with Consumer Affinity told us that, “Many companies miss the mark when it comes time to retire IT devices like Laptops, Desktop Computers, and Servers that are at their end of life. There’s a misconception that deleting the data means that it’s gone and unrecoverable. Unfortunately, that’s simply untrue.” Destroying data is important to do on your own personal devices, but especially for corporate offices to do. When businesses need to downsize or update their IT equipment, they can have a huge amount of equipment filled with sensitive data that needs to be protected. 

Follow this 5 step plan to ensure you’re securely disposing of all your old IT equipment. 

1. See if You Can Recycle

Not all of our old electronics need to be recycled just yet. There are plenty of times when businesses get rid of old IT equipment that’s still in good condition, but they just don’t need it. Electronics like this can possibly still get used before they need to be recycled. This helps extend their lifespan, reduces the number of new electronics that need to be created, and can help more people access these electronics. Before you get rid of anything, check to see if you can donate some of your old IT equipment. 

2. Find a Reliable Recycling Center

Where you recycle your unwanted electronics is extremely important. You want to know that your e-waste recycling will all be taken care of. While we all need to be responsible when getting rid of old electronics for the sake of the environment, some states require you to recycle your unwanted electronics. For those who live in states with these rules in place, it’s even more important that you can show that you recycled IT equipment properly. With Newtech Recycling, you know you’re getting a recycling program that takes all the necessary steps to reduce e-waste.

3. Backup All Of Your Data

One of the most important things you need to do when you’re disposing of old IT equipment is to ensure that all of your old data is backed up somewhere else first. You don’t want to find yourself searching for something important in the future only to realize it’s gone and there’s no way of getting it back. To make things easier for you in the future, triple-check that everything is backed up where you’ll be able to find it. 

4. Remove Hard Drives

For those who don’t have many electronics to recycle, you can sometimes remove hard drives yourself before recycling or donating. However, this can be more difficult when you have a lot of electronics to get rid of, which is often the case for businesses. If this is something you aren’t able to do yourself, we can help with it at Newtech Recycling. 

5. Get Professional Help

When getting rid of their old electronics, many people make the mistake of trying to remove all of their data themselves. This might make it seem like you’ve erased everything, but doing this is actually much more difficult than it seems. The only way of ensuring that there’s no way anyone else can get access to your information is to have it professionally destroyed. David Shay with Activeits told us, “In order to 100% secure disposed data, storage drives must be destroyed to an unusable state. We recommend a drive shredding service which comes to your office and will shred the drives in front of you.” Another way is to contact a recycling company that will do this for you. We make sure that all of your data is destroyed during our recycling process, so you have nothing to worry about.