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Insights And Stories: The Give IT. Get IT. Blog

Where Does Your Retired Technology Go?
  • Date: July 17, 2020
  • Category: give IT

Where does your outdated corporate tech go?

It’s an important question we’re asking every small business owner, large company executive and every IT Director in between to ask themselves and their peers.

SO WHERE DO YOUR OLD COMPUTERS, LAPTOPS AND OFFICE TECHNOLOGY GO?

Do you let your employees keep their old laptops?

Do you send your outdated computers to a scrap yard?
If so, do you get an audit-proof certificate verifying the secure destruction of your data?

Do you donate your old tech to a non-profit organization?
If so, is your own IT department spending valuable time destroying the data and coordinating pickup/delivery?

Do you not know where your outdated corporate tech goes?

If  you’re getting an uneasy feeling in your stomach or feel a cringe spreading across your face, we’d like to talk to you. Improperly disposed of technology is a serious threat to your company’s security and a surefire way to end up on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Wall of Shame. At give IT. get IT., we’ve lost count of the number of awkward conversations we’ve had with businesses who thought their equipment was being properly recycled. It’s never fun to call a business owner and let him or her know that you got their name and number from the email directory in the computer that ended up in our facility.

It happens all the time to companies who trusted a vendor to recycle their technology only to have it sold for scrap or stashed away in an abandoned warehouse.  The companies whose improperly recycled technology ends up in our e-waste recycling center in Waterville are lucky. After notifying them of the situation, we properly dispose of everything we receive.  Imagine if these same computers ended up in the hands of the company’s competition or a criminal?

When you recycle your old corporate tech with give IT. get IT., you’ll never have to worry about where it goes. We pick up your pile of outdated computers, printers, copiers, scanners and terminals so your IT department doesn’t have to lift a finger. We haul all your equipment in GPS-enabled trucks to ensure a secure chain of custody to our facility where we painstakingly record every item we take in, scrub every bit of private data, refurbish what we can, recycle what we can’t and provide a complete report of exactly what we did with every piece of tech we received.

And then, the really good stuff happens.

We take the computers that we refurbish or custom build from old parts and give them to Mainers in need at low or no-cost along with complete training and a full-year of tech support.

Can your e-waste provider do all that?

Don’t spend too much time thinking about it because they can’t. give IT. get IT. is the only nonprofit effort to reuse tech to help people that is certified in New England. The competitive (and often times less expensive) fees we collect from these services fund a significant portion of our non-profit organization’s activities. Of course, if your company recycles a large amount of reusable computers, we waive ALL of our fees.

So, if your company or organization has computers that aren’t being used or are in need of replacement, please call Chris Martin at 207-322-6257 or email him at cmartin@itec3.org to learn how we can turn your outdated tech into tools and opportunities for people. It’s the ultimate win/win.

During the last several months COVID-19 has made life even more difficult for people who can’t afford a home computer. Help us provide digital inclusion to these people who are doing everything they can to improve their lives — all while helping your company dispose of its technology as securely and sustainably as possible.