31. Where money is left on the table in ITAD and e-waste industry

In this conversation, Stephanie McLarty discusses IT asset disposition and e-waste recycling with her colleagues, Jim Drohan and David Borins. They explore the factors that impact the financial return of ITAD and e-waste, as well as the mistakes companies make that result in leaving money on the table. They also discuss the importance of a holistic approach and provide checklists for companies to maximize their returns through proper asset management and recycling practices. The conversation covers various aspects of e-waste recycling, including the challenges, best practices, and advice for organizations. It emphasizes the importance of compliance, logistics optimization, and strategic planning for IT asset disposition. The speakers provide valuable insights and practical tips for managing e-waste responsibly and effectively.


Takeaways

• Understanding the factors that impact the financial return of ITAD and e-waste recycling
• The importance of a holistic approach to asset management and recycling practices
• Checklists for companies to maximize their returns through proper asset management and recycling practices Compliance with regulations is crucial for organizations involved in e-waste recycling.
• Consolidation and strategic planning can help lower logistics costs associated with e-waste pickups.
• Proper management of IT asset refresh cycles is essential for maximizing economic recovery and minimizing data and environmental risks.

Thanks for tuning in to The Circular Future. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

Interested in joining us as a guest? Reach out to Sanjay Trivedi at strivedi@quantumlifecycle.com.

Listen to more episodes at https://quantumlifecycle.com/podcast, and stay connected with us on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Stephanie McLarty (00:43.232)
Doesn't it bug you when you leave so -called money on the table? In today's episode, we're dissecting how to avoid this in IT asset disposition and e -waste recycling. Welcome to the circular future, your access to thought leaders and innovations to help you be a business sustainability champion, even if it's not your core job. I'm your host, Stephanie McClarty, head of sustainability at Quantum Lifecycle Partners.

I know it bugs me when I don't realize savings or on the flip side, the opportunity to make an extra return on something. This so -called money left on the table phenomenon happened all the time when it comes to the remarketing and recycling of electronics. And it comes at a time when companies are under increased pressure to make every dollar count. With me to delve into this issue are two of my quantum lifecycle colleagues.

Jim Drohan, Vice President of Business Development for ITAD, meaning the reuse and remarketing of IT assets, and David Boren's Director of Business Development for Quantum's e -waste recycling division. Welcome to the podcast.

Borins, D (01:58.461)
Thanks, Steph. Honored to be here.

Stephanie McLarty (02:03.232)
Well, I'm happy to have you both here. Jim, did you want to say something? Yeah, and Zanjay put his hand up.

Jim Drohan (02:19.537)
What about that?

Sorry, I did say something, but you didn't hear it.

Stephanie McLarty (02:26.912)
Do you want me to say it again? Okay. All right. Welcome to the podcast.

Jim Drohan (02:29.361)
Sure, welcome.

Borins, D (02:35.997)
Steph, we are honored to be here.

Jim Drohan (02:39.569)
Indeed, it's a pleasure. Looking forward to this.

Stephanie McLarty (02:43.232)
Well, I'm excited that you're here. And very first we, let me start again. Well, I'm excited that you're here. And I thought we would switch things up a little bit regarding our first question because we always ask about the company that you're representing. And in this case, you know, we're all representing the same company. So I'm gonna switch it up to ask you something different. And Jim, I'm gonna start with you.

Jim, what are three things that the world should know about ITAD, IT asset disposition?

Jim Drohan (03:17.937)
Well, thanks for spelling it out. That's one thing they should definitely know. I would say the three critical things are knowing that ITAD is not e -waste, although that's a part of it. ITAD is not just buyback, getting money for your old stuff. And they should know that ITAD is a critical element of IT asset management. And it should be considered as such from cradle to grave. And it's never too early to think about your ITAD plans.

Stephanie McLarty (03:46.368)
Okay, awesome. And Dave, over to you. If we look at e -waste recycling, what would you say are three things that the world should know about e -waste recycling?

Borins, D (03:57.501)
I would say that there's a short list. But in so many cases, number one, material that you think is waste may not be waste. So even the idea of e -waste is something that we're trying to get rid of because there is value in the commodities built into this waste. Number two, not everything has value. So there are a lot of items that you could expect to charge for.

And number three is that it's never been more important to ensure that this material, which can be hazardous, is not in a landfill.

Stephanie McLarty (04:39.744)
Okay. Okay. So you got some great points there around value and sharing the stays out of landfill. And I want to pull on that value string a little bit more because we're talking today about where money is left on the table. But first let's take a step back and think about what factors go into the financial return of something, whether it's going through ITAD or e -waste. Dave, I'm going to start with you because you brought this up around value.

So what factors go into pricing of e -waste?

Borins, D (05:14.013)
Well, as you might imagine, there's a lot of factors that go into it. And I think that particularly when it comes to the concept of e -waste and the concept of recycling is that it is not divorced from what Jim is working on with the ITAD. You know, there is an opportunity to reuse things and reuse them and reuse them. And so by the time it becomes quote unquote e -waste or ripe for recycling, it should have already, that asset should have been sweated, you know, like,

you're leaving money on the table if you're sending us things that we then have to send back. So that would be the first thing. Just, you know, if we're talking about a circular economy, then this is an important part of the circle, but it has to be connected with, with what's what Jim works on and what the ITAD team works on. So they're really a partnership that's involved in that process. And when it comes to the waste side or the recycling side, you know, we're thinking of in terms of

per pound versus per asset. So when you're sending us items or sending us a collection of items, there's value in volume. The more material you send us, the more value you will find because there's an economy of scale that occurs. That is a big part of it. And the thing that really does eat up the value in these, you know,

Jim Drohan (06:31.281)
Thank you.

Borins, D (06:40.701)
commodities that exist in the end of life material is logistics costs as well as labor. So every step you take to consolidate and to reduce the amount of labor needed to process is money that you could be retrieving for your company when sending us material.

Stephanie McLarty (07:04.)
Okay, the two L's, logistics and labor. Got it. Okay, so Jim, so Dave mentioned about the reuse side and ensuring that we reuse first through the ITAD division, for example. What factors go into the financial return when it comes to reuse?

Jim Drohan (07:24.177)
Well, unsurprisingly, reverse logistics, so it's an RNNL, is a huge part of that. And again, as David mentioned, economies of scale is critical. You know, just simplistically picking up one notebook versus 100, we're going to get our cost per unit down to do that. So reverse logistics is something that I caution clients about.

Borins, D (07:29.821)
Thank you.

Jim Drohan (07:51.473)
and then on -site or plant -based costs. That's where some financial costs come into play. And thinking that through in terms of do we have space at the site to do things there? How important is that to you versus secure transport to one of our facilities? These are just choices that impact the financial. And then age, condition, and market demand of the asset. So.

Market demand is somewhat out of our, well, entirely out of our control, but being aware of what's going on in the marketplace and we help customers with that. And then age and condition, again, condition out of our control, but we can help clients understand, certainly on the reverse logistics about packing things properly so they're not damaged in transport and age. We would like to be part more frequently in the conversation about

refresh cycles and when is the optimal time to refresh and all those things impact the finances and the returns on the ITAD process.

Stephanie McLarty (09:03.04)
Okay, so if we're talking about where money is left on the table and you've given a number of factors there, some within control and some outside of, you know, our control or our customers control, where would you say, Jim is the most, sorry, where would you say Jim is where the most money is left on the table when it comes to ITAD? Like what are the mistakes that we see customers make?

Jim Drohan (09:30.897)
Well again, that longevity and age, so running it too long or hard. So on assets like mobile phones, running hard, not investing a little bit upfront in screen saver and a padded case or a protective case. The same can apply for other mobile devices, so a little bit of effort upfront to ensure that it's protected. And then again, picking a refresh cycle that is a little bit longer.

basically ensuring that the value will cover the cost of the disposal and that requires the user of the asset to be having discussion with someone like us. And then the other thing I see happen pretty frequently is the peeling off high value assets. And I remember from the outset, I said ITAD is not buyback, but you'll find these enterprises that will say, we're going to sell all our notebooks on the open marketplace or mobile phones or other.

high value items and then they're left with printers and access points and other devices that typically don't hold a lot of resale value and then in the case of printers they're big and heavy and then they're shocked at this, wow it's going to cost me that much to remove these and it's going to be excessive versus the value. So those are the running too long and hard and not considering the value at the onset of the asset.

Stephanie McLarty (11:01.6)
Right, and this whole notion of the word cherry picker comes to my mind, like taking off the high value assets. the way Dave's looking at me, maybe I won't use that word.

Borins, D (11:13.629)
I think I lost your sound, so I'm not sure if that's, if Sanjay, did you lose the recording?

Stephanie McLarty (11:17.024)
Borins, D (11:29.565)
Mm -hmm.

Jim Drohan (11:35.857)
Yes, Stephanie, I didn't hear what you just said.

Borins, D (11:36.221)
I just say that the last... Yep.

Stephanie McLarty (11:38.336)
Okay. Okay. Well, okay.

Stephanie McLarty (11:46.688)
OK, I'm just going to go right into Dave. Where was I going with this? I know it was a need for a holistic solution. How do I bring that back in? I'm just not going to worry about it. I'll do it later. OK.

Stephanie McLarty (12:00.768)
Okay, so that's great, Jim, you're talking about age and you know, the whole approach to how ITAD and these old assets are managed. Dave, what do you see on your side when it comes to, okay, you know, it's ready for e -waste recycling? Where do we see companies miss out and leave money on the table?

Borins, D (12:22.781)
great question and really important because I think so much of anything in life, but particularly in this comes down to preparation. You know, so if you send us a blind load that we don't know what's in it, we don't know how it's, you know, like, you know, there's a lot of, you know, surprise in there, then, you know, there's a lot of time spent sorting it. There's a lot of time spent assessing it.

you know, and taking, making sure we know where it's going correctly will cause labor and cause a lot of money left on the table, which is what we're talking about. What we want to know ahead of time is, first of all, what is the material we're getting? And that way we might be able to even say, hey, you should talk to Jim because you can get a lot more if you send it through Jim first and then as opposed to it coming through us where it's going to get thrown into a shredder, you know?

But once we receive it, if it's a whole bunch of wires and materials and who knows what's not, they're all mushed together, then we have to sort it. And so it takes time to sort it. We have to figure out where, you know, what's packaging, what's waste, what's actual, you know, availability for the shredder. And the big thing is where are the batteries? Because the batteries are sometimes a positive asset, sometimes a negative asset.

but always a careful asset. And if they go through our shredder, then they could cause a fire. And if you cause a fire, then everything slows down and everything costs money. And, and, and, you know, so a lot of what we do in preparation of the material that we receive in our facility is we search for batteries, we extract the batteries, we sort the batteries, we make sure they're not a danger to our employees. We make sure they're not a danger to our processing. And we make sure that we're getting value out of the material that would otherwise go, you know,

be easy to put into the shredder. And so if we know what we're getting, if we know how it's sorted, and if we know how it's packaged, then we're going to be a lot more efficient at processing the material. And therefore, we're able to offer a better return per pound on that asset, or less of a charge if it's a charge.

Stephanie McLarty (14:42.752)
Can you tell us a little bit more about how the items are packed? It's great, it's great. I just saw a Sanjay hand.

Borins, D (14:47.229)
a lot there.

Borins, D (14:57.117)
I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Stephanie McLarty (14:57.832)
Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Stephanie McLarty (15:07.232)
Can you tell us a little bit more about the packaging element? Because I know there's been times when I've been surprised at, you know, when customers send us a product for e -waste recycling and it's really packaged, just how much that really drags down the value. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Borins, D (15:25.469)
Have you ever gotten a present for your birthday? And it's like this amazing electronic thing, and it's in one of those shrink wraps, and then it's in a box, but it's also in one of those plastic materials, and you have to try and open it up, and you're like, I could hide my jewelry in here. It's so well packaged. This amazing thing that keeps the new product pristine is a real hassle when it comes to...

getting something prepared for processing and recycling. So the packaging makes a big difference and we call it the boxing. How much do boxing is needed? You could have a skid or a pallet that has like four big boxes and then each of those boxes have stuff in them, but they're loose. That's not going to be an issue. You just open up four boxes, but you can imagine if you're recycling, let's say a recalled product right off the shelf and it's full of new items in their original packaging. That means.

somebody, a human being has to go in and open it up like it's Christmas, you know, and then take the packaging apart for each individual one, set it aside. There's going to be plastic and cardboard and other, and that is its own weight. And then, you know, you get through all these little tchotchkes and eventually they're ready for the shredder or for the sortation. But it's a real laborous step. And so again,

Maybe as an organization, you don't have the labor to do that work on your own end. And that's fine. Just consider it because somebody has to do that labor. And so you could pay us or you could do it yourself and either way, it's gonna erode the value you get, but it is a necessary step. And so, so D -boxing is something that people don't think about, but should.

Stephanie McLarty (17:08.832)
Right. Cause as you mentioned, there is usually not much you can do about the fact that it is already in that packaging. You just then have to manage it. So whether, whether the customer does it or whether a company like quantum does it there, you know, if that's something to be managed.

Borins, D (17:24.093)
thing somebody could tell us is, it's all sorted in a Gaylord or in like one of those, you know, large boxes, like one box on a skid, open top or closed top. Then you can just dump the thing into the shredder and there's no handling or, or de -boxing or sorting needed. And, and, you know, so we will tell the customer, this is a really good way to, to maximize your return. And the quote will be, be really based on the amount of

of labor needed to prepare it for processing.

Stephanie McLarty (17:56.832)
Now dumping everything into a Gaylord, if it's got reuse potential, it's not the way that we would want to go. Jim, can you tell us about what are the things that we do want companies to do? What would be the checklist that you would give to a company where they've got assets that we know will be put through the ITAD side that have reuse potential?

Borins, D (18:03.933)
Mm -hmm.

Jim Drohan (18:23.441)
Yes, so I would suggest that the client in looking at ITED generally should consider the pillars of service and these are all equal. They're not in any order and it's environmental stewardship. We're gonna do the right thing environmentally. There's data security, that's critical. And then there is economic recovery and they want to consider those in a holistic fashion. And...

Really, I think that there is, as we stated earlier, the economies of scale. But the thing they should be considering is part of their IT asset management process overall is when they're going to recycle or what is end of life for a particular asset category and work towards scheduling that with.

Communication, I suppose, would be the biggest thing. So here's maybe the better way for me to spell it out is, and I've alluded to earlier, you've got some low value assets and then most people would be aware of them, but we will help them go through that. So things like if they've refreshed access points, no rush to get those back to us. If you have space, let's build those up. And same with some printers, again, I appreciate they maybe take up space, but if you can bulk up those items and then include some.

higher value items at the same time. And again, mostly computing devices, whether it be servers or desktop or notebooks, there's gonna be a higher potential value recovery. And then it comes down to the physical packing of those things. And we do that for our customers. And that's a little bit what Dave was on to. If you wanna do it yourself, it's gonna be lower cost and we can actually send packaging to our customers.

can certainly give you guidance on how to do it and we do this every day and they shouldn't be fearful to say well I know how to put things in a box well yeah you probably do but let's talk about it first because how you stack a notebook off of each other or side by side you might not thought of that and we know what it means to do it one way or the other so those kind of things so get in front of the whole process it is not it shouldn't be just a cleanup and a one -time

Jim Drohan (20:42.001)
transactional. It should be a strategy and they should work with a partner that can help them with that strategy. Make sense?

Stephanie McLarty (20:49.664)
And to that point, that does make sense. And you mentioned the word holistic. So that holistic strategy where you're looking at everything. And I think something that probably crosses a lot of our listeners minds and those who work in IT departments and operations and procurement and companies where they may not know the distinction of, well, does this asset have reuse potential or does it not? Should it go right for recycling?

But that's something that they don't specifically have to know, right? That they can just lean on their key account person to help them to decide what to do with what product, what kind of packaging goes into it. Is that right, Jim?

Jim Drohan (21:32.913)
Indeed, yeah. And we've got some nice photos and background information and really in a 15 minute, half hour tops discussion with understanding what their environment is. Space in an office environment is often a premium. And there is some exposure and risk from a data security standpoint, leaving assets idle in an open area. So we talk about maybe a lock space. We do provide lock bins for

media -bearing devices or devices that have media -bearing.

tools inside them and so yeah it's just a little bit of a consult to formulate a solution and again leveraging an organization like ours that has you know thousands and thousands of occurrences and we've got a great knowledge base and we're happy to share it.

Borins, D (22:26.429)
 always joke, we always joke is that in recycling is that one of our biggest clients is quantum ITAD because you know if if you really don't know and you're not sure and you send it to ITAD they're going to go through it with a fine -tooth comb and send anything that's you know to be recycled through to recycling which which at least you know for sure that it's it's done in a secure way you know for sure that it's

Stephanie McLarty (22:27.232)
Absolutely.

Jim Drohan (22:35.217)
huh.

Borins, D (22:55.997)
you're going to maximize the value through that path. So we do a lot of taking the things that aren't resellable and then recycling them properly. And that would be reflected in the certifications or reports that you'd be getting as a result.

Stephanie McLarty (23:17.056)
That's a really great point and go ahead.

Jim Drohan (23:17.233)
Yeah, I think...

No, I was just going to say the first step in sorting is what we do at ITAD. And I often call that triage in the medical world that is determining what is this. We've got to prioritize those things that can be fixed and the other things that can't. We're going to go over here. And that's kind of what we do. And in turn, because we're pros at it, the way we sort it is helpful for our partners in our own company and on the e -way side.

Stephanie McLarty (23:51.168)
So Dave, what would the checklist be that you would give to a customer where they know that what they have is for recycling? What should they do?

Borins, D (24:02.141)
Well, as they say in real estate, sortation, sortation, sortation.

Stephanie McLarty (24:07.552)
Do they now?

Borins, D (24:09.693)
I think I got that wrong, but what I would say to the client is sort it. Make sure that you're not wasting your money by having us try and get it into, you know, have it a big mishmash. And if that's not possible, consolidate it. You know, we have people who have set up sort of like, like courier deliveries of like one box here, one box there.

And there's all that is, is, is creating expense. It's always better to send a larger volume if possible. It's not always possible, but that's, that's a really important thing to consider. Also, you know, as I said before, identifying what we, what you have and what you're sending ahead of time after, and then, you know, and making sure we're not left with surprises is, is really important.

Oftentimes we're dealing with large sort of roll -off bins or places that aren't collection spots. And if that is the case, a little bit of security goes a long way, right? We've received weird things in these public collection bins. You can imagine, I'm sure you've walked by, you can open 40 yard and like throw in a coffee cup.

but people have things other than coffee cups that they can throw in there. And that creates expense for you if you're sending us a roll -off bin and there's, you know, pet waste or there's who knows what that is, the unmentionables of this world. Inside the bin, it creates hazards, you know, and so then you'll get charged for hazardous material. So, you know, a little bit of security, even if it's not data -bearing, goes a long way.

And also you don't want to be, you know, charged for the neighborhood throwing in their, their waste into, into your, what should be a pristine e -waste collection bin. There's a whole bunch of, ways to secure material and keep it separate and, and, separate it and also, just be mindful that there's humans on the other end of it. So, so, so, you know,

Borins, D (26:35.901)
if there's sharp items, that's an issue you want to know about it ahead of time. And if there's removing packaging, again, we said that already. And the sortation piece, there was the other thing I was going to say was.

Borins, D (26:58.621)
maybe this part would be cut out. There was a third part. What are we talking about?

Stephanie McLarty (27:00.608)
That's funny.

Jim Drohan (27:01.841)
Hehehehehe

Stephanie McLarty (27:07.6)
Thank you.

Borins, D (27:14.781)
Let's move on. Did I close enough? Can you cut that, Sanjay? So it looks like I didn't just trail off into the wind. Okay.

Stephanie McLarty (27:22.128)
That might make it into the bloopers.

Borins, D (27:25.917)
I'm sorry.

Jim Drohan (27:28.849)
Dude, I'm gonna see a dog - a dog waste.

That waste, that waste.

Borins, D (27:34.429)
What?

Jim Drohan (27:40.113)
could be cut.

Stephanie McLarty (27:41.472)
Okay.

Jim Drohan (27:44.337)
Ha!

Borins, D (27:58.385)
Was that what I was saying, there's humans on the other end? So, right. Just, yes. The third thing is be mindful that there's a human on the other end of that material that we receive and we're really dedicated to safety, you know? So if there's items that could be hazardous,

sharp items, maybe volatile items, again, go back to batteries, or just hazardous things in general, it's going to be a big issue if we're opening them up and finding unwanted surprises. So, you know, remember that there's humans involved. That was what I would say.

Stephanie McLarty (28:43.104)
That's a really great reminder. It's kind of like the golden rule. Do unto others as you would like to have done to yourself in this case. Perfect. Okay, let's move on to our rapid fire how -to section in which I'm going to ask you various how -to questions and you can answer them either short or long all depending on on the answer. Okay, Jim, I'm gonna start with you and I know that there...

Borins, D (28:48.797)
Mm.

Stephanie McLarty (29:10.592)
is a lot of companies out there who offer free pickup, but you may not know exactly where your products go. So how to explain to your boss why your company shouldn't go for the free pickup offer by a scrapper.

Jim Drohan (29:30.961)
Okay, well, I like to say, you get what you pay for. So, nothing in life is free. There's a cost or a consequence and the consequences I think are the most important here, less so than the cost. And, you know, I think there's an opportunity risk because if someone's doing it for free and we accept the premise that nothing really is for free, how are they covering their costs? It means there's likely some value in those assets in excess of whatever their cost depends on.

And in a for free transaction, it's not transparent. So when you want to know what's going on. And the other is by and large, if someone's doing these things for free, they're probably not certified to the highest standards. So I think that's where the real risk comes into play. And even if someone is certified to some standards and they're doing things for free, it's a precarious economic model.

And if something goes sideways, if I was doing something for free and because I built in an arbitrary value and I somehow scratched the floor when picking it up or crashed into something and all of a sudden I'm going to have these costs to fix things up, I might just walk away from the deal. So you want to make sure you're dealing with someone who is economically viable. Should there be any problems and beyond them, you know, the

problem I just mentioned which is a minor damaging a loading dock for example versus not properly disposing of the data on the on the devices so that data security element echoes sideways. Organization like ours we carry two million dollars errors and emissions insurance per occurrence so in the unlikely event something we do results in any kind of data loss we're on the hook. Guys are doing it for free I'm not so sure.

Jim Drohan (31:27.505)
That's what I tell my boss.

Stephanie McLarty (31:27.84)
Okay, great 

Borins, D (31:40.221)
Well, I've said it a few times, consolidate your material. It's, you know, full truckload is much cheaper per pound than a, you know, a couple of skids here or there, or like, or a mail back program with a courier. Not always possible and people, you know, needn't have a full truckload, but giving us time can be helpful. If you tell us,

I got this, this gotta get off my dock and it's gonna be tomorrow or this afternoon, then we're gonna find you a way to do it, but we won't find you the necessarily most economical way to do it. So if we know that there's, you know, one skid, we can maybe sort it into a milk run. So you can do some sort of a lower price for that skid because it's not a dedicated service. Another thing could be to...

do a regular pickup. So, you know, if we know that there's some certainty every the third Thursday of every month, we're going to drop by that doc and grab that thing, we can negotiate sort of like a more reasonable logistics cost. And the third thing is avoiding extra stops. So,

I don't know that there were three things there. There might've been more. I wasn't counting, but if you're avoiding extra stops, you're gonna not have like a drop -off, you know, where you're dropping, like you're getting materials delivered and then that's like an empty run back. You know, you wanna make sure that when there's material being switched out or returned, it's sort of in concert with the schedule. So I think it comes down to planning is the thing I said early on in this.

conversation.

Stephanie McLarty (33:29.408)
Well, I did think you were going to lead with what they say in real estate, consolidate, consolidate, consolidate.

Borins, D (33:33.405)
consolidation consolidation consolidation

Stephanie McLarty (33:39.616)
Okay, Jim, last one. How to think about refresh cycles as a company.

Jim Drohan (33:49.553)
Great question. The first thing is think about refresh cycles. So making a conscious effort to...

bring all of the product that you have into categories. And typically we talk about, well, previously telephoning, but IP based phones, that's kind of now in a e -way cycle, but cellular mobile phones, and then end user computing devices, and then server network storage, and then often printing is a separate line item. And those categories each have,

timelines that match up against historic market values and historic new refreshes. So there's external influences. So in the most all familiar with desktops and Windows and Microsoft, a new release, certainly in phones, the same thing. These new releases sometimes impact the device and certainly impact the device value and your use from them. So those are things to be aware of, but just

overall categorizing the assets into like types. It's kind of like Sesame Street. Some of these things belong in these places and then put in place a consideration of what is the economic target for a useful life cycle. So from an accounting perspective, you're going to depreciate these assets over a period of time. And then before you lock that, talk to me, talk to somebody at Quantum on the ITAD side and go,

Is this fair and reasonable against what we've seen historically in the market? We've got some great data on that. And again, it's not guaranteed because we don't know what's going to happen in the future in terms of, you know, technology, major shifts and change. And, you know, as on this call today, we're all wearing these things and we don't use IP phones anymore. That kind of happened, you know, not overnight, but it happened pretty rapidly. And other things like that can happen in the future. But mapping it out by categories, what I want on my books.

Jim Drohan (35:52.561)
and then making sure that's gonna match up against what the potential for reuse and recovery of my disposition costs in the future. That's what I do. That's a.

Stephanie McLarty (36:08.512)
Okay, for me, you were cutting in and out and I hope the gets resolved in the upload. Okay.

Jim Drohan (36:11.601)
Sanjay does it, if you can't fix it, I could probably repeat most of that.

Stephanie McLarty (36:24.032)
I think it will, like, Sanjay can listen to it. If it can't be fixed, he'll just get you to rerecord separately.

Jim Drohan (36:39.569)
Okay, yeah, I do think, I don't know if it's a system, but I've also been having some, it's telling me I got weak internet, it's popped in and out, so.

Stephanie McLarty (36:51.392)
Okay, no problem. Okay, last question.

Borins, D (36:53.053)
Mm -hmm.

Stephanie McLarty (36:58.56)
Thank you, Jim, that was really insightful. Now, the last question I have for both of you is what we always ask, and it's really to distill down into a simple message. What's one piece of advice that you would leave listeners with in this realm? So Dave, I'll start with you. What's one piece of advice you'd leave our listeners with regarding e -waste recycling?

Borins, D (37:23.197)
Check the regulations. We haven't talked about it, but you know, if you're an organization of any size, you may be, you know, under certain compliant regulations that are either provincial or national or international. So by working with somebody like us, this is something that, you know, we can administer for you or we can make sure that you're compliant with. And so when you're recycling things, you want.

to have the reporting that allows you to show that you're in compliance. Or even if you have goals as an organization from a sustainability standpoint, we also have the reporting and the tracking that you can almost seamlessly fit in to your ESG or impact reports. So when you're thinking about these things and you're thinking of them not just as, I've got a box of stuff to get rid of, you're thinking of it in terms of.

how can I really get the most out of this asset? And so not only can you get some return potentially from it, not only can you ensure that you're doing like a good thing environmentally and be able to show that, you're also able to report on, you know, where your assets went, you know, the safety of it being under lock and key and that any data has been destroyed through, you know, in concert with Jim's team and my own team. And then...

you're able to get something out of it beyond just the dollars and cents. And that's all part of it as well. And if all else fails, sortation, consolidation, and consolidation.

Stephanie McLarty (39:04.416)
Wait, did you just change the golden real estate rule here?

Borins, D (39:09.533)
location.

Stephanie McLarty (39:12.032)
Okay, well great advice and a really important point around the regulation side for sure. Jim, what would be your final piece of advice?

Jim Drohan (39:21.969)
It's something it being ITAD disposition. So the folks in IT that tend to get, kind of hesitate to use the term burden, but are end up becoming responsible for this are also those that are the same individuals that make decisions on implementing new, managing the new assets in use. And that's a heavy amount of workload for those folks in the day to day. And all I'd ask is to at some point carve out a plan as it

relates to the disposition of your IT assets. It shouldn't be ad hoc that all of a sudden you're tripping over stuff, I've got to get rid of that. You're going to have a tendency to make a rash decision and you're going to leave yourself exposed to data risk, environmental risk, and poor economic recovery if you don't do that. So take a little time, plan your retirement and make a plan, work your plan.

Stephanie McLarty (40:14.656)
Okay, very important, make a plan.

Stephanie McLarty (40:21.952)
Perfect. Thank you. And thank you to you both for being here and sharing. Yes, Dave.

Borins, D (40:28.253)
I just wanted to say the last bit again because I thought of a third.

Borins, D (40:34.461)
I'm sorry.

Jim Drohan (40:42.033)
Apparently Marlon Brando was like this on the set all the time and wanted one more take

Borins, D (40:43.645)
This is, I know you can just take the sound, but.

Stephanie McLarty (40:49.472)
Okay, okay, okay, go Dave.

Borins, D (40:52.413)
And if all else fails, remember the three most important things. Sortation, consolidation, and de -boxation.

Stephanie McLarty (41:03.936)
Depoxation. All right.

Borins, D (41:09.949)
I'll pop that into the other sound bite.

Stephanie McLarty (41:14.016)
Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Let me bring this back.

Borins, D (41:17.629)
Sorry, now you can see your outro.

Stephanie McLarty (41:25.248)
Well, thank you both for being here today and sharing these insights. And I really hope that others take something away from this so that they can maximize their opportunity in this space.

Sorry Sanjay, this is gonna be bad. Okay, I'm gonna say that again. I'm just gonna keep it simple.

Well, thank you to both of you for being here and for sharing all your insights based on what you've seen. We appreciate it.

Borins, D (41:57.181)
as well as reserves.

Jim Drohan (41:58.097)
It was a pleasure being here. I really enjoyed the podcast. Yeah.

Stephanie McLarty (42:04.8)
Thank you. And remember, if you are looking for a partner in ITAD and e -waste recycling, we'd love to chat. Head on over to quantumlifecycle .com and contact us. This is a Quantum Lifecycle podcast and the producer is Sanjay Trivedi. Thank you for being a circular future champion in your company and beyond. Logging off.

Stephanie McLarty (42:33.184)
We normally don't have this much fun in the podcast.

Borins, D (42:34.877)
Do you want me to come over? I can help you chop it up.

Borins, D (42:46.077)
Heheheheh

Jim Drohan (42:48.817)
He literally wants to just to chop it up. Just chop it all up. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing this because it's like, I think this falls into the category of you never want, you want to enjoy sausage, you don't want to see it being made.

Stephanie McLarty (42:49.92)
you too. Thank you. Thank you.

Borins, D (42:56.849)
That's it.

Borins, D (43:09.261)
No, I think we did a great job.

Stephanie McLarty (43:12.384)
You did do a great job. I will say...

Stephanie McLarty (43:18.624)
I will say, don't be surprised if it gets edited down. We normally keep it to around 30 minutes max. So you might have to take out some content as well just to kind of make it a bit more manageable. But I'll leave that to Sanjay. Yeah.

Jim Drohan (43:19.025)
I want to see only the final cut.

Jim Drohan (43:23.824)
I hope it does!

Borins, D (43:35.709)
There's some repeat - repeating instance.

Stephanie McLarty (43:47.456)
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. Well, thank you again, and we'll keep you posted on the release and all that and... Okay. All right. Okay. Bye.

Jim Drohan (43:48.081)
Perfect. Okay, thanks folks. All right.

Borins, D (43:56.253)
Thank you. Take care.

Jim Drohan (43:57.233)
Okay, thanks. Bye bye.