How To Remove Data And Personal Info Before E recycling

It’s estimated that American citizens throughout the country throw away over 9.4 million tons of electronics each year. There’s a number of sources of this electronic waste that can be reused especially with the valuable resources that are wasted. The energy capability for 1 million laptops could be responsible for powering over 3600 homes over the course of a full year.

When working with an electronic recycling company you’ll be able to recycle the maximum number of materials that can be found in your electronic waste. Working to protect your data and personal info before you drop these electronics off at an electronic recycling company is important.

How To Wipe Your Data

The first step that you will need to take before dropping your equipment off is to back up the data that you would like to keep a hold of before you permanently delete all the information on your device. Getting an external hard drive or flash drive to hold onto any of the data that you’d like to keep is a great first step. Make sure that you are removing any browser data like your personal login information and passwords. Most of the time, you could consider performing a complete factory reset on a computer or smartphone before you take it in, and after you’ve saved the data that you would like to keep.

A surefire way that you can remove data before you take part in an electronic recycling program is to remove the storage drives from your electronic devices and smash the hard drives before you bring them in for recycling. A good number of electronic recycling programs will shred the hard drives in a computer anyway. Your smartphone Sim card should also be taken out and cut in half before it’s thrown away and batteries will often need to be removed and recycled separately for laptops and for smartphones.

Protecting your data is extremely important before you take part in electronic recycling. Remember these steps to protect yourself in the future.

This post was written by Steven Elia Owner and electronic recycling specialist at eCycle Florida. eCycle Florida is a R2 Certified electronics recycling company in the state of Florida. Our processes and procedures are dedicated to the proper destruction and recycling of your electronics. eCycle Florida is your go-to for Pinellas County electronics recycling.