While it may seem at first that the world of San Francisco e-waste environmental compliance is complicated and daunting, having the right knowledge for your team can truly make a big difference. To help facilitate the learning experience for you and your team, our experts have summarized 5 important San Francisco e-waste environmental compliance issues that every team needs to address.

If you ever feel overwhelmed at any point or feel like you need a helping hand, don’t hesitate to reach out to us – we’re always happy to hear from you and ready to help.

Issue #1: Knowing the laws and regulations
One of the biggest challenges that we see many San Francisco teams struggle with is keeping up to date on all the current e-waste and environmental compliance laws and regulations. While all of the information is published by the government, many teams don’t check for updates regularly or an unsure about how to laws and regulations apply to each piece of specific equipment, opening up the potential for gaps in coverage.

At NC Computer Recycling, we specialize in staying up to date on all local, state and federal e-waste laws and regulations, as well as industry-leading best practices, so that our customers never need to worry about whether or not their policies and plans are current.

Issue #2: Lack of documentation and audit preparedness
One of the largest glaring holes in e-waste environmental compliance for many teams is a lack of documentation and audit preparedness. Even if you responsibly recycle all of your e-waste in a fully compliant way, if you don’t have the proper documentation and audit preparedness in place, you’ll find yourself fending off a lot more questions that will be needlessly difficult to answer. Whether an investigation is conducted by an outside firm or agency, or conducted internally, you’ll want to be prepared to answer questions even if the investigation is prompted by an issue originating from another team within the same organization.

Issue #3: Overlooking some varieties of e-waste
Over the years, we’ve also found that many teams overlook just how wide in scope e-waste is. Many teams may focus on just computers and laptops, overlooking e-waste like mobile phones, servers, routers, switches, hard drives, flash drives, and many other electronic devices as well. In addition, many teams overlook components of electronics or other supporting resources like batteries, which can become e-waste when no longer needed and not properly recycled. Remember that these devices all contain hazardous materials if not recycled properly, so the scope of e-waste at your location may be much broader than you initially think.

Issue #4: Underestimating liability and potential damages
Unfortunately many teams also feel that if problems are out of sight, they are out of mind and no longer need to be worried about. However, underestimating the potential liability and damages of improper e-waste disposal can be a grave mistake. In recent years, there have been plenty of companies in California who have been slapped with fines, lawsuits and expensive settlements surrounding improper disposal of e-waste. Whether it’s improper disposal of electronics devices, the components or resources that they need to function, or manufacturing byproducts, handling e-waste properly is crucial in all cases.

Issue #5: Lacking a sense of urgency
One of the other most important issues with e-waste environmental compliance that is widespread is a lack of sense of urgency. Many teams don’t create enough internally pressure or rally resources to properly recycle e-waste in a timely fashion, which increases the potential for the e-waste to create damages or simply waste retail space that the team is paying for. Don’t give into the temptation of putting off the issue – give us a call or send us an email and our friendly team of e-waste recycling experts will help you get started right away.