Yesterday I read a great article about Intechra; a US firm which recycles, resells and generally takes care of portions of the huge amount of computer waste generated by our society. I really appreciated the part about their employee visiting all end sites where the equipment is disposed to ensure the entire process is handled in an environmentally aware manner and nothing ends up in a landfill. Excellent. And actually sustaining a business with this model- it’s all very smart.
Since reading this article, I’ve looked for more information on Intechra, trying to see what sort of details I could find about the business-to-community relationships. Right now it appears that much of Intechra’s income comes from working with IT departments of companies trying to cleanly dispose of aged equipment. The step that I couldn’t find, though, is whether communities also pay Intechra to keep computer equipment out of landfills. Is this only a volunteer business/consumer recycling model right now? Where is the government recognition for private companies involved in landfill avoidance? The frontiers are wide open for various revenue sources…I look forward to learning more about this company, and this business space.
1 response so far ↓
LiferAcer // Aug 15, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Intechra is all about business relationships and not communities. So are a number of other companies like Redemtech in Columbus, Ohio. The problem in this business is that it is very expensive to take in community-based products without some sort of revenue for the costs of recycling within the US.
Most of the companies that are in this area will be competition with the OEM’s, however; the OEM’s might not always recycle within the US. Due to all kinds of industry leaving the states to the more profitable international markets you will see an actual reduction of what gets recycled in the US.
There was another business that Intechra bought called Retro Box and twice a year they had community computer drives. Again, the problem is the costs associated with the lack of income from these communities. As evidenced by the fact that they do not do any more drives for the community.
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