e-waste. Everyone produces it. Few properly dispose of it.
When an electronic device is discarded, obsolete, or broken, it’s considered electronic waste (e-waste). Forty million tons of e-waste is generated every year, and even more sobering, less than 30% gets recycled.
That means 70% of the time, sensitive data may still remain on devices, harmful pollutants are potentially released into the soil, air, and water, and precious metals fail to return to the supply chain.
Proper e-waste disposal doesn’t have to be labor-intensive, expensive, or a security liability. Turn to Steel City Shredding in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for NAID AAA certified e-waste disposal and on-site hard drive shredding.
Common (And Not-So-Common) Types of E-Waste
Electronic waste is any device that requires an electric or battery to operate. While many kinds of e-waste may seem familiar, others might surprise you.
- Cell phones and smart phones
- Desktop computers, laptops, tablets
- Screens and monitors
- Hard drives, solid state drives
- Batteries, battery packs, charges
- Smart watches, GPS devices
- Appliances: washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, air conditioning units
- Vacuums, microwaves, toasters, hair dryers
- Printers, copiers, fax machines
- Routers, servers, networking equipment
- Barcode scanners, label printers, receipt printers
- Cameras, video cameras, webcams
- Medical equipment: imaging equipment like MRI machines, patient monitoring systems, laboratory gear
- LED lights
- Video game consoles, speakers, music equipment
- Electric drills, saws, and lawnmowers
Company-Wide Adoption of E-Waste Disposal & Recycling
Steel City Shredding serves companies in the Greater Pittsburgh region, from startups and small businesses to large corporations.
Nearly every department in your organization will benefit from e-waste disposal and recycling, because good data hygiene protects team members, executives, vendors, clients, and consumers alike.
Key Decision-Makers
The C-Suite loves Steel City Shredding, because we offer Pittsburgh businesses external accountability for IT asset disposal and mobile, on-site hard drive shredding. Execs know that delegating e-waste disposal to an NAID AAA certified shredding service will save their company time and money while shoring up data security.
With an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, Steel City Shredding has earned its place as Pittsburgh’s most secure e-waste disposal and recycling service.
Having served the Southwestern Pennsylvania region for 98 years, we’ve established a long track record of excellence that senior executives can trust in.
Information Technology (IT) Department
E-waste disposal is an important element of IT Asset Disposition (ITAD), which is the responsible removal, disposal, and recycling of end-of-lifecycle electronics.
IT Asset Disposition has three phases:
- Data removal: a company or third party wipes the data from all decommissioned electronics so that no sensitive information can be recovered.
- Disposal: the electronic devices are securely destroyed.
- Recycling: recyclable raw materials are recovered, like gold, copper, lithium, and plastics.
Steel City Shredding specializes in the disposal and recycling aspects of IT Asset Disposition for Pittsburgh companies. We securely shred and destroy hard drives, solid state drives (SSD), and other types of e-waste. Then, we recycle 100% of eligible electronic waste through our certified partners.
With the peace of mind that comes with NAID AAA certified e-waste disposal and recycling from Steel City Shredding, IT departments can ensure that decommissioned electronics don’t become a vulnerability.
Information Security & Cybersecurity Department
Business operations live jointly in the physical and digital realms. The data from a physical breach can be used for social engineering and cyberattacks. So by strengthening physical information security, your cybersecurity has one more layer of defense.
The secure destruction of hard drives, solid state drives, and e-waste is a core part of responsible data hygiene. Malicious actors have lots of tricks up their sleeves to steal data, but they can’t do anything when electronic waste is shredded into miniscule bits.
On-site, NAID AAA certified hard drive shredding and e-waste disposal denies anyone the ability to tamper with decommissioned electronics.
Legal, Privacy & Compliance
Regulatory compliance is no laughing matter, and e-waste disposal and recycling through Steel City Shredding helps all types of businesses in the Pittsburgh, West Virginia, and Ohio regions sleep better at night.
The Pennsylvania Covered Device Recycling is a statewide law that makes it illegal to throw computers and televisions in the trash. It also requires Pennsylvania businesses with 50 or more team members to arrange for IT asset disposal.
Here’s just a few ways our NAID AAA certified hard drive shredding and IT Asset Disposition services help local companies:
- Law firms preserve attorney client privilege.
- Financial institutions maintain compliance with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA).
- Insurance companies protect personally identifiable information.
- Healthcare providers meet all HIPAA requirements and avoid exposure of protected health information (PHI).
- Tax firms safeguard sensitive financial information of their clients.
- Educational institutions prevent breaches of student data and adhere to FERPA.
Steel City Shredding is the all-in-one solution that makes hard drive shredding and e-waste disposal secure, convenient, and affordable.
Human Resources (HR) Department
HR departments access, store, and route employee information daily. A breach of personally identifiable information (PII) would be ruinous for a company’s morale, finances, and reputation in the industry.
That’s why Steel City Shredding keeps Pittsburgh companies free and clear of breaches and employee data safe with mobile, on-site shredding services, along with electronic waste disposal and recycling.
ESG & Sustainability
Our philosophy at Steel City Shredding is that electronic waste doesn’t have to be wasteful.
We recycle 100% of eligible e-waste so that precious metals and other important materials can be melted down and reused for future purposes, including new electronics. This reduces the need for new mining of precious metals, a process that contributes to climate change and deforestation. (We also recycle 100% of shredded paper.)
Plus, responsible e-waste disposal and recycling prevents toxic substances from being released into the environment. These measures enhance public health and environmental health at the same time.
Contracting with Steel City Shredding helps conserve the environment and natural resources while affirming your company’s commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility throughout the Pittsburgh metro area.
Frontline Employees
Tasking your team members with IT Asset Disposition is a non-starter.
It takes away valuable time from their primary duties, burdening them with more work that’s outside their daily role. When team members have added work of this nature, the pressure multiples to knock it out as quickly as possible. That leads to rushed processes and cut corners. Plus, your team members are not trained to the level of an e-waste disposal specialist from Steel City Shredding.
Consider operational security as well. The more employees who handle end-of-lifecycle electronics, the higher the likelihood of a breach. That’s not to cast aspersions on the character of your team. It’s a simple rule of human nature: remove the access to remove the temptation.
Insider data breaches are on the rise, whether it’s due to employee negligence, exploitation through social engineering, or malicious intent. They’re also more difficult to detect than external breaches. Ponemon Institute found that only 13% of insider-related incidents are contained within 30 days.
Given these risks, it’s in the best interest of Pittsburgh businesses to delegate e-waste disposal and hard drive shredding to Steel City Shredding.
Solo Entrepreneurs & Small Businesses
Pittsburgh small businesses enjoy working with Steel City Shredding because of our personalized, scalable e-waste disposal services.
We offer one-time purges for startup founders who may only need to clear out old devices and electronics once or twice a year.
Or, if your small business needs e-waste disposal at more regular intervals, our scheduled shredding service is a great option.
Universal Benefits of E-Waste Disposal & Recycling
The value of NAID AAA certified e-waste disposal and recycling goes far beyond simply ridding yourself of decommissioned electronics. Pittsburgh companies can reinforce their defenses around data security while reducing their carbon footprint.
Data Security
Just because a hard drive or decommissioned device is discarded doesn’t mean that data can’t be recovered, even if it’s been manually wiped.
In 2021, a community healthcare organization in Maine found that the protected health information of more than 116,000 patients faced exposure because of improper hard drive disposal at a third-party storage facility.
This story is not exactly unique. Blancco Technology group conducted a study that discovered that, of the organizations surveyed, 32% of companies that experienced a data breach attributed it to redeployed hard drives or devices retaining sensitive data.
That’s all the more reason to contract with Steel City Shredding. Our NAID AAA certified e-waste disposal and recycling service ensures the secure destruction of hard drives and decommissioned electronics.
With the proliferation of data centers across the country, including in Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania, IT Asset Disposition and proper decommissioning of electronics become even more essential, as millions of data points flow through their servers each day.
Tamper-Evident, Time-Stamped Audit Trails
Steel City Shredding provides you with a certificate of destruction after e-waste disposal has been performed, giving you authenticated records for compliance purposes, auditors, security reviews, and financial records.
Many companies, while committed to IT Asset Disposition, often don’t follow through with hard drive decommissioning and e-waste disposal. Partnering with Steel City Shredding guarantees that secure hard drive destruction and e-waste disposal is performed routinely.
Environmental Conservation
E-waste contributes to water, soil, and air contamination. It accounts for more than two-thirds of the heavy metals found in U.S. landfills, such as lead, mercury, cadmium.
Shredding and recycling electronic waste ensures that toxic chemicals aren’t polluting our communities and that precious metals can be repurposed for manufacturing of new electronics.
For a complete breakdown on the positive environmental effects of e-waste disposal and hard drive shredding, read our breakdown here.
What E-Waste Can We Shred? Almost Everything.
Our shredding specialists at Steel City Shredding can perform mobile, on-site shredding for any of the following types of e-waste:
- Hard drives, solid state drives
- CDs/DVDs
- USB drives
- Credit cards
- Data Tapes, X-Rays, Microfiche
- CDs, Floppy Disks, or any other physical data storage
- Laptops & Computers
- Cell Phones & Tablets
- Printers & Copiers
- Servers & Networking Equipment
- USB Drives & Storage Media
- Other Data-Storing Electronics
The Downsides of Alternative E-Waste Disposal Methods
E-waste disposal is not the place to cut corners, and it ends up costing those who do.
DIY Hard Drive Destruction? Don’t.
While you might get a laugh from these DIY e-waste disposal efforts, they aren’t recommended because of the health and safety effects on the individual and the environment.
- Drilling holes through hard drives
- Chiseling a chip on a solid state drive
- Hammering a hard drive into pieces
- One-minute ride for a hard drive in the microwave
- Dunking hard drives in water
Drilling, chiseling, and hammering hard drives creates shavings and fragments that you have to clean up. Plus, the residue can get in your eyes and lungs. Microwaving a hard drive increases the risk of accidental fires and can release toxic chemicals into the air.
And, as with all the DIY methods shared, dunking hard drives in water is tedious when you have to do it scale.
What About Commercially Available Shredders?
Industrial shredders are available on the market for businesses to purchase, but it’s hard to justify the cost, whether you’re a small business or large business.
A small business may not have a large enough volume of e-waste to justify the cost of a shredder. A one-time purge of e-waste from Steel City Shredding is much more affordable than the cost of owning, maintaining, and training team members on an industrial shredder.
A larger business may have multiple franchises or offices, making an on-site industrial shredder less efficient because it’s only at a single location.
Steel City Shredding provides mobile, on-site e-waste disposal services in the Pittsburgh area, so we can come to you with our mobile shredding trucks. It saves you the hassle while allowing you to witness the shredding firsthand.
Uncertified Shredding Companies
If you’re going to contract with a shredding service, make sure it’s NAID AAA certified. This certification verifies a shredding company’s compliance with all known data protection laws. Steel City Shredding is an NAID AAA certified e-waste disposal service.
A non-accredited e-waste service may not have the level of training, expertise, and vetted hiring practices necessary to securely dispose of electronics with sensitive data. If you’re going to spend the money on a shredding service, don’t put yourself in a compromising position.
Schedule Your E-Waste Disposal Today
For NAID AAA certified e-waste disposal and recycling services, contact us at 412-496-1240 or schedule a video call to learn more about our offerings.