Where electronics go to die: Fair Lawn company to open electronics recycling facility

AnythingIT receives electronics recycling permit
(Gallery by Myles Ma/
Myles Ma | By Myles Ma |
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on January 10, 2013 at 6:00 AM, updated January 10, 2013 at 9:41 AM
"Computers can not end up in landfills. That's the bottom line."

FAIR LAWN — There is a warehouse on Zink Place with racks filled floor to ceiling with old computer parts covered in black plastic. It's where technology goes to die.

The ground is covered with neat stacks of boxy laptops, cardboard boxes filled with hard drives and piles of not-so-smart phones - all discarded by their owners, all rendered out-of-date by the quickening pace of innovation.

They will be shipped off to be broken down into their core components: aluminum, glass, copper and even gold, to be used as building materials, toner cartridges or a variety of other uses, while their toxic components— lead, mercury—will be safely disposed of.

In the past, that process took place at facilities outside of Bergen County, but for the first time, a company has received permission to recycle electronics within the county. That company is AnythingIT, which owns the Zink Place warehouse, and is the first to receive a Class D recycling permit in Bergen County.

Recycling electronic waste is a fast growing business. Americans threw out 29.4 million computers, 22.7 televisions and 129 million cell phones in 2009, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, while the sale of such devices reached 438 million units the same year.

There is increasingly little reason to form a bond with an electronic device when costs go down and processing power goes up with each new device.

"This is not a scenario that's going to change any time soon," David Bernstein, CEO of AnythingIT, said.

Twenty years ago, Bernstein and a partner were buying and selling computer parts. But two events launched the electronic recycling business and propelled him into it.

The first came in the year 1999, when people thought their computers would shut off as soon as the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve. Y2K wasn't the apocalypse people thought it was, but it planted the idea that new cool devices people were using wouldn't last forever like their cars or refrigerators.

The second event that launched electronic recycling came when the tech bubble burst. The resulting layoffs orphaned a host of technology, and finding a market for it turned out to be good business for AnythingIT.

AnythingIT has been recycling electronics for the better part of 20 years. While the company sells some of the devices or donates them to veterans through a charity called Work Vessels for Veterans, the company contracts the actual breaking down of the products to partners.

But with its newly received Class D permit, AnythingIT plans to open its own recycling facility in Bergen County. The presence of a local electronic recycling center should present a savings for Bergen County businesses and governments, Bernstein said, since the biggest expense in electronic recycling tends to be moving it around.

But it pales in comparison to the cost of not recycling electronics, Bernstein said. Toxic electronic waste can end up in landfills in third-world countries, 60 Minutes reported.

"The environmental impact of not handling this stuff is significant," Bernstein said. "It contaminates the soil. It contaminates the water supply. Computers can not end up in landfills. That's the bottom line."

Aside from the Class D permit, AnythingIT also holds several environmental certifications, among the most in the state, Bernstein said. The company manages electronics collection events for companies and local governments, taking in tens of thousands of pounds of devices at a time.

AnythingIT currently employs about 50 people, but Bernstein expects that number to grow when the new recycling facility opens. The facility will likely end up outside of Fair Lawn, where the company has made its home for the past four years.

"We love the town," Bernstein said. "Unfortunately we're growing at a pace where the space we're in now can't handle what we're trying to do."