Locals seek e-waste recycling help from Bay Area

Healdsburg business helps increase electronics recycling
In 2009, an Environmental Protection Agency study found that only 25 percent of electronics were recycled in the US, with computers having the highest recycling rate of 38 percent and cell phones 8 percent.
In Healdsburg, one local business has been working on increasing those rates. Redwood Moving and Storage collected around 200,000 pounds of e-waste in the past four years, in turn passing it along to a large-scale recycler, ECS Refining.
Redwood’s impressive track record in recycling was spurred on by owner Bob Fraser’s natural competitive spirit. In 2005 Fraser had recently taken on the job of North Bay chapter president of the California Moving & Storage Association (CMSA).
At the annual convention, each chapter presented a check to the CMSA scholarship association with the proceeds from its philanthropic fundraising efforts. After being out-performed in fundraising by other chapters in the CMSA, it was in an effort to raise more money for the scholarship fund that Fraser turned to e-waste.
“After the convention that summer, I was talking to my dad and I told him about the association and about coming up with a some kind of a fundraiser,” Fraser told the Tribune. His father told him about an e-waste collection he’d seen at Piner High School in Santa Rosa.
“‘There were cars parked all the way up Fulton Road, dropping off this stuff and there were pallets of e-waste out there!’” Fraser related the story his father had told him. “‘I don’t know what their boosters club makes but you should give them a call.’”
Not long afterwards, Fraser was in San Rafael, meeting with another moving company, Earl Farnsworth Express, and an e-waste recycling company representative, where they floated the idea of incorporating e-waste collection into their moving business.
“We were sitting there, having our coffee and donuts and we were thinking, ‘We’re in peoples’ homes every day, what if we collected the e-waste on a daily basis?’” Fraser said.
Ever since, Redwood Moving and Storage has offered e-waste collection as a free service to its customers. The company is also an e-waste drop-off location, where people drop off their unwanted printers, computers, stereos, televisions and cell phones on a daily basis, Fraser said.
“That first year that we collected e-waste the North Bay chapter was able to raise, with our other fundraisers, $15,000,” Fraser said. “We went to the following convention and presented the check to the state association and that was one of the proudest moments of my life. People were just blown away.”
Redwood receives various rates per pound depending on the category of electronics they’re collecting. For CRT TVs and monitors they get 16 cents per pound, as with flat screens. They receive 20 cents per pound for various metal wiring and 20 cents per pound for computers, but for microwaves, printers and other items, Redwood receives no money at all.
The recycler that picks up the collected e-waste at Redwood is the San Jose-based ECS Refining. Regional Account Manager Patricia Potter said Fraser’s company is a perfect fit for ECS Refining’s distributed collection program.
“The program Redwood is in is called ecollective,” Potter said in a phone interview. “It was a mission of ECS Refining to have a free and convenient drop-off location for every resident of California within a ten mile radius of their home.”
Also part of the ecollective is Goodwill Industries of the Redwood Empire, whose Windsor location also accepts e-waste donations. Additionally, the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency also contracts directly with ECS Refining.
“We do e-waste collection events once a month, in a different part of Sonoma County so that we service the entire county,” program manager Lisa Steinman said. “They’re really successful events. The last one was at the Wells Fargo Center.”
Their next event, organized in coordination with Goodwill, will be held on Saturday, January 26 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Santa Rosa Oakmont Central Facility Parking Lot, 6633 Oakmont Dr.
Through its contract with ECS, the county’s waste management agency allows e-waste to be brought to various transfer stations in Sonoma County.
In Healdsburg, Redwood’s Bob Fraser maintains that e-waste collection is a “win win win” scenario.
“It’s a win for the community, it’s a win to the e-waste recycler, and for us it’s a win in terms of free marketing,” he said. “In 2012 we matched our peak revenues of 2005, and I am sure that some of that is attributable to more people knowing that there is a moving and storage company in Healdsburg because they dropped off their e-waste here.”