Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Recycle Your Old Hard Drives.

Although it's always been possible to recycle used PCs and other electronics, the actual process of hard drive recycling involves more than just taking your computer to your local dump. The benefits of hard drive recycling are manifold, and luckily for you, we've taken the time to compile a list of the top ten reasons why you should recycle your old hard drives.

1. Hard drives can be recycled more than once

Recycling your hard drive is important because it prevents the toxic materials used in hard drives from going into landfills. Hard drives contain a number of toxic materials like lead, mercury, and cadmium, which can leach into the soil and water when landfilled.While these toxic materials can eventually degrade into less toxic compounds, hard drive recycling keeps these toxic materials out of the environment in the first place. Today’s day-trading computers and smartphones contain a lot of the toxic metals used in hard drive manufacturing, so using these electronics to help recycle hard drives is a smart move.

Although hard drive recycling can seem simplistic and boring, your old hard drive is never truly “gone.” Certain hard drives can be recycled by placing them in a raised bed with specialized chemicals. After using the chemicals to dissolve the top layer of dirt, your discarded old hard drive can be removed, cleansed, and recycled by conventional means. Luckily, once a hard drive has been recycled, you may be able to use it forever without spending a dime.

Perhaps one of the strangest aspects of hard drive recycling is keeping a close eye on your recycling haul once your old hard drive has been processed. Some hard drive manufacturers require you to report all the drives you receive in your recycling to ensure they are getting destroyed. If you receive a drive that was previously recycled, and it passes the smudgy photo test, you can be sure it was in a landfill and was ultimately destined for all those landfill fires and overflowing landfills.

Hard drives germinate and grow from one solid particle to several smaller ones over time. It can be difficult to identify the source of an infestation while attempting to disinfect it when trying to process it. Recycling is mandatory and can involve tracking the movement of your hard drive and opening your computer case so the relevant chemicals can evaporate.

2. It's not just about the environment

The environment is very important, of course, but we should also remember that as humans we are part of the environment and whatever we do to it, we do to ourselves. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the products we buy, the brands we love... all of these things are connected.All of these things, and countless more, are made from minerals and materials extracted from the earth. And the minerals and materials used to do so are mined, refined, and created out of the earths on a huge, global scale. Because modern mining and processing of these materials and minerals takes immense amounts of energy and emits vast amounts of greenhouse gasses, it’s crucial to ensure that we’re using as little of these resources as possible.

Hard drive recycling is a great way of doing this, because it can actually be done efficiently and fairly at a local level. What this basically means is that you don’t have to go to the depths of the ocean to get your hard drive recycled — you can send your old hard drives to live a new life in a landfill, or in a recycling center that specializes in PC recycling. You can skip the long, drawn-out process of having your hard drive dismantled, inspected, cleaned, reassembled, and readied for shipment to a recycler and instead send the hard drive directly to the recycling center just a few miles away.

All recycling centers will give you instructions on what to bring with you, and they will generally include information about the minerals and materials used to make your items. After all, if I’m recycling a lithium-ion battery, I want to make certain that it contains only materials that are recyclable and safe for the environment.

You do have to pay to recycle online — in most countries — but they often don’t cost that much.

3. The data on your hard drives is valuable

If you work with digital content or have an online business, chances are you have a lot of data on your computer hard drive. This data might include photos, videos, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, audio files, and more. It’s important to back up your data so that you can recover it if something happens to your computer.According to Apple, there are two ways to back up your data:

Using your external hard drive every now and then keeps your data safe, and it’s also a way to give the storage device a second life. Getting new storage out of your old storage device can be more expensive than using a new one, so if possible, you should recycle your old hard drive. Just make sure to archive the data in a safe place since the effort needed for recycling a full hard drive can be more than the value of the internal storage.

We’ve all heard about the environmental problem of e-waste, and although hard drive recycling is an environmentally friendly process, not all used hard drives are created equal. Producing a new hard drive is a lot more labor-intensive than recycling an old one, and the casing of your old device can introduce hazardous materials into the recycling process.

A full recycling process would consist of separating the spinning metal from the hard drive. Then the device is sorted, inspected, and tested to ensure that it doesn’t contain hazardous materials. Another full process consists of cleaning and sanitizing the new drives and then reseating them in the appropriate slots in the computer. Finally, the SSD is filled with scrap metal from your old device.

Unfortunately, not all discarded hard drives are recycled. While recycling old PCs is easier than buying new ones, there are still many issues with recycling all. For one, batteries can still pose a danger to the environment as they pose an accumulative hazard. Additionally, used batteries can still generate dendrite activity that can damage a hard drive. Although hard drive recycling is organic, it doesn’t eliminate the need for batteries.

4. Properly disposing of your hard drives can save you money

If you’re planning on upgrading your computer, you should be aware that old hard drives contain sensitive data that can be recovered by criminals. To keep your data safe, wipe your hard drive clean (or physically destroy it) before you dispose of it. This will keep your sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands.

Did you know that the software covering up Windows logo is called the Windows Rest API? If you’re ever fired from your job, you’ll likely realize that one of the first things you could be asked about was your computer’s registry. That’s because the registry is where all of your security and privacy settings live. All devices came with a pre-installed program that informed the manufacturer about your privacy preferences. When the OS was updated, it would overwrite any previous settings with its own; if you wanted to revert your settings, you had to salvage the registry.

While you would think that a computer’s manufacturer would keep its privacy settings hidden away in an encrypted registry, the Windows API allows the registry to expose interesting information. See below for data that could be useful to a scammer. [Data via Hex-rays via Green Spain]

Your hard drive is all lined up in a cabinet or in a drawer? You can reuse it, right? Although some electrical appliances are better for the environment than others, hard drive recycling isn’t a technology that comes with any clear winner.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), recycling a hard drive results in about half the emissions of a traditional computer system (i.e. electricity, mining, oil, gas, etc.) and less nitrogen oxide emissions than combustion. Just like laptop recycling, the process is as simple as it sounds: open up your hard drive and carefully extract the debris.

It’s important to note, however, that the hard drive must first be emptied; it won’t work until it’s empty. If you do it yourself, you may have to open up your case or smash your hard drive with a hammer or similar object.

5. Recycling your hard drives can help build a better community

Donating your old devices to charities is not enough. Donating things like hard drives can help build a better community. Having the ability to help someone else is a great feeling. Donating hard drives or old tech you don't need anymore is also a great way to create a community of people who can help each other.

According to PC Magazine, “Composting” is the act of taking items like food scraps, garden waste, newspaper, or even plastic bags and turning them into fertilizer. Using this technique, you help not just yourself but your surrounding communities as well. Instead of your food ending up in the dump in the first place, it goes into growing healthy food for your community. Anything you can recycle can also be Composted!

Another great benefit of Hard Drive Recycling is that you can reuse it on other devices. Perhaps your hard drive can be used on another PC or laptop. If you take it to an electronics recycling center, they can reuse the hard drive to recycle your old cell phone. That way you don’t have to stop at turning old hard drives to mulch!

Hard drive recycling is also much more ecological than just throwing your old devices in a dumpster — it can actually create space for wildlife. Animals tend to trample and chew on electronics until they die. Pressurized nitrous oxide can even be used to make fertilizers that benefit organisms like bees and butterflies.

Hard drives benefit the environment first and foremost. Whether you take old drive to an electronics recycling center or just compost it, no matter how small its impact on the environment, recycling hard drives is an excellent thing to do.

Consumers spend $65 billion a year on electronics. The combined lobbying spending by PC and electronics recyclers in 2020 alone is nearly $500 million. With the potential to generate so much money and take so much of the trash out of circulation, surely there are tons of recycling centers where you can dump your old tech for a tidy profit.