Detroit News - Local spotlight - May 29, 2007
Computers trashed in a responsible way

Company disposes of outdated electronics with focus on protecting data and the environment.
Alexa Stanard / Special to The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Old computers are the environmentally toxic version of personal documents: they're loaded with sensitive information and need to be destroyed, but doing so is potentially hazardous.
In 2000, Nathan Zack, then 18, founded Great Lakes Electronics Corp. in his garage to address that problem. The company has since built itself into one of the top five electronic waste disposal companies in the United States by taking computers and other materials off the hands of companies, governments and individuals and disposing of them in an environmentally sound way.
"When you throw away a computer with nine pounds of lead in it, the mercury vapor can seep through a landfill and possibly into the water supply," Zack said. "People don't understand the potential harm.

   "Every piece that touches our facility gets reused or recycled. That's really the drive behind this business." According to the National Safety Council, millions of personal computers, which contain toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury, are relegated to scrap in the United States.
GLE last year processed 25 million pounds of e-waste and this year expects to handle 40 million pounds, mostly at its massive facility in Detroit.
The company collects computers, monitors, hard drives, cable boxes, fluorescent bulbs, TVs and other materials and breaks them down, removing any parts of value for resale and shredding the rest, then shipping the materials to a smelter. While a commitment to being green drives Zack, GLE's focus on secure data destruction combined with the growing incidence of identity theft and a need to protect industry secrets often drives his clients.

   GLE shreds memory devices such as computer hard drives, and will shred an entire computer if asked. A camera records the process for clients who wish to verify a computer's destruction; GLE has had Secret Service agents stand at its shredding machine and watch as government computers went down the hatch. "This eliminates identity theft," said Kerry Grushoff, GLE's vice president. "There's such a need for this." Indeed, the company has grown every year since its founding, Zack said. GLE's 80 employees are nearly triple the number the company employed in 2005, and its three current facilities in Detroit, Holly Hill, Fla. and Ontario serve the entire Midwest, South and Canada. A fourth facility in Texas or Arizona is slated for this year, and the company is looking to expand globally.

Alexa Stanard is a Metro Detroit freelance writer.

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