For outdated assets, it should never be a case of ‘out of use, out of mind.’ How are they disposed of and what is being done to prevent information and data falling into the wrong hands? Time to make the crucial call to a certified recycler like METech Recycling.
From its five locations in Colorado, Massachusetts, Utah, North Carolina, and California, where it is headquartered in Gilroy, as well as three additional partner facilities under First American Metal Corporation, METech serves customers nationwide with customized and certified end-to-end asset recycling, inventory management and disposition solutions.
“What we can provide the customer when they send their products to us is, we handle the responsibility from beginning to end and we also ensure that all sensitive data are securely destroyed. That’s one thing that most recyclers don’t offer,” explains METech Recycling President Rex Cheng.
Since 1968, METech Recycling has evolved with the market to ensure it remains relevant and impactful. The company began as a precious metal scrap operation and little by little adopted new capabilities to offer recycling services for electronic components and manufacturing by-products, as well as end-of-life electronic equipment, secure data destruction and asset management.
Today, another point of differentiation is the company’s commitment to maintaining a recycling standard that is in compliance with required as well as voluntary certifications, including R2 Certification, which ensures Circle of Excellence best practices in electronics recycling. As such, it is ISO 14001:2015 (environment), OHSAS 18001:2007 (health and safety) and R2:2013 (responsible recycling systems) compliant.
METech Recycling maintains a myriad of other certifications and accreditations which ensure a certain standard is upheld, and which offer clients peace of mind that their best interests are being protected and serious liabilities avoided. The company is rigorously audited to achieve these standards, which serves as a major point of differentiation in the market.
Offering pure destruction
According to Cheng, many recyclers disregard client contracts and compliance, so when companies deal with recyclers who are not certified there is no telling where information or products will end up. “They are supposed to destroy it but when you are reselling someone else’s product, you are getting higher value than actually pure destruction, so that’s the kind of service we offer to our customers,” he explains.
From Cheng’s perspective, “Certification is to show customers that we have a certain standard in this industry because recycling is like the real Wild West; a lot of recyclers don’t have the certifications and without these it’s very hard to assure your customer. Corporations require these certifications to give them assurance and that’s just the first level when you negotiate a deal.”
To offer proven accountability, METech Recycling developed proprietary software that takes its clients through the process of recycling and disposition. Clients receive a full audit detailing the process, but if they desire, they can follow the live tracker that takes them through the entire process. They have the option of single-, three- or seven-pass software data destruction solutions.
“In today’s world, what they really want is data security and five years ago this was what they required. Now they want live tracking,” says Cheng. Using a live portal, clients can monitor the movement of their materials 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Doing it this way protects a client’s trademarks, proprietary technology, intellectual property, personal information, and reputation with viable eco-responsive solutions. This method has the best interest of the environment, the client’s business and the client, personally, in mind. There is a lot at stake when it comes to the leaking of information and data.
Raising the bar
“From the time we pick up the material, it’s being tracked all the way through our facilities. We also seal the material,” Cheng explains. “A huge percentage of our clients are actually from the government. They send their data, and we process it live in front of them and then we show them a video capturing the destruction itself.”
This approach was adopted three years ago, as it became the industry standard. “Once it’s done,” Cheng says, “they can actually download the report and they can also see the impact to the environment and how much return.”
METech Recycling serves large industrial, commercial, and government organizations including the military and education, as well as medical clients, in particular those who need to protect valuable data, and those with a particular focus on recycling and environmental sustainability. From an environmental standpoint, METech can support corporate responsibility programs through the reuse, redeployment, recycling, and certified destruction that diverts refuse from landfills and helps clients’ corporate image through making them true partners in sustainability.
“METech always adapts to the changing market. Almost every time there is a new invention, we adopt a new technology, and we move from market to market in the recycling spectrum. There’s a huge variety of markets within it,” said Cheng.
The company has become a trusted source of IT asset management, reverse logistics and redeployment, and IT asset recovery. It also offers new and used IT products that have been fully tested for functionality; and graded, cleaned, and refurbished by in-house ITAM service professionals.
METech Recycling maximizes the recovery and reuse of materials and equipment by offering some for resale. New and used IT products are available for sale including laptops and desktop computers, tablets, CPUs and processors, routers, firewalls, hard drives, VOIP phone systems, test and measurement equipment, lab and medical equipment, and much more.
The mission is to provide high quality, full lifecycle electronic equipment management services, but the company ends up doing so much more in becoming a trustworthy partner that will be there for their clients – even during the height of a pandemic.
Through thick and thin
Most recently, METech Recycling stepped up, when no one else would, to serve the medical industry. Like other operations, it was supposed to close when the pandemic hit, but demand from the medical sector kept it fully operational, if not busier than before.
“We had a lot of calls from the medical industry and the OEMs that supply the medical industry. These equipment makers had been making a lot of equipment and the hospitals had to get rid of the old equipment. They ran out of space, so we sent out our trailers and trucks and we started picking them up,” says Cheng – in particular hospital beds and remote surgery equipment.
Over the course of the pandemic, Cheng estimated that the company managed to divert from landfills “a few million pounds” or “a few hundred trailers of equipment from hospitals.” This is a new market that is serving METech well.
Emerging market trends
Some of the other market trends identified by Cheng as future demand are filtration machines from HEPA filters, especially as COVID-19 persists; robot vacuums and automation equipment in general (as industries become more automated like automated pickers). All this translates into more demand for the METech’s recycling services.
Likewise, Cheng believes that telecommunications equipment will become another recycling stream, especially as people working from home are upgrading their equipment and bandwidth, moving from 3G to 4G and 5G capabilities.
Solar panels, which Cheng referred to as the next CRT television screen when it comes to recycling and disposal, are also a potential market. METech Recycling continues to look to the future and works with the industry and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish standards and propose the best means of disposal.
For Cheng, “The short-term goal right now is to support the medical industry in the fight against COVID by providing them with recycling support, and that extends to all agencies.”
Nevertheless, the long-term focus will always be on heightening data security and privacy to protect clients, reducing liability for data breaches, and saving the environment by diverting landfill, one truckload at a time.
