According to eCycle Florida, electronic waste accounts for 70 percent of the hazardous waste that is deposited into landfills. For Tony Selvaggio, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. “Look at this very old iPhone, one of the first-gen iPhones,” he says. The items in the buckets he displayed were once the latest gadgets. But as technology advanced, the items were left behind. It’s why he opened his own company, ‘E-Smart Recycling.’
“This year we are processing about half a million pounds of electronics,” Selvaggio said. He previously lived in Venezuela and worked in the scrap metal industry. That experience propelled him into the electronic waste field. It starts with buckets filled to the rim with hard drives, phones, and computers. They’re donated and then recycled at his warehouse. “We need to understand that even though this is only about only 2% of the waste that we produce as a society, it represents almost 80% of the toxic waste,” Selvaggio said.
Hard drives are removed from laptops and put into the shredder to ensure the data on them is protected. But the laptops still have a purpose, Selvaggio said. “By providing an opportunity to get rid of your trash by just thinking outside of the box, you can turn an old piece of device into an instrument, into a catalyst for change for someone who doesn’t have access to technology.” His lack of access to technology growing up, and his desire to protect the environment, pushed him to give back.