XMission Recycling Initiative

8 Feb, 2013 Grant Sperry Stuff We Like, Tips & Helpful Information

As you can imagine, an IT company that’s been in business for nearly 20 years, with dozens of employees and a data center, has the potential to accumulate a lot of junk. Consider, for example, that computers have the lifespan of a banana, the resale value of the tuxedo you wore to your high school prom, and contain all kinds of pollutants that any sensibly minded citizen doesn’t want to see leach into the ground water. Since XMission is very committed to being green, we decided to recycle as much as we absolutely could.

Although, over the years, we resell what we can and have weekly visits from Momentum recycling, all kinds of random stuff still piles up into intimidating mountains of junk. So, finally, Pete decided he was going to do something about the clutter and assigned the whole thing over to me. Fortunately, I got permission to hire someone on contract to do the majority of the actual labor. We organized the mess into various piles for different recycling destinations. The computer and cardboard piles were impressively gargantuan. Finally, once we had everything sorted, we rented a 24′ truck to haul things around.

In the end, our recycling efforts garnered us over a thousand dollars, from the sale of batteries, steel, copper, and computer scrap. Nobody charged us for recycling any of it, either. Momentum brought their truck to the front of our data center and helped us load in a vast amount of cardboard, along with some plastic, without charging us extra. We had a lot of styrofoam and were happy to learn that local business Marko Foam would let us drop it all off at their offices, with advanced notice. Lesson to be learned? Recycling is not only the right thing to do but it can also pay off.

We managed to recycle nearly everything: