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Aha! Moment leads to start of recycling firm.


As a "finance geek A technically oriented person. It has typically implied a "nerdy" or "weird" personality, someone with limited social skills who likes to tinker with scientific or high-tech projects. The origin of the term dates back to the late 1800s. " for Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982.  in Silicon Valley, Randy Lewis This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article.  hated staring into a computer monitor for 10 hours a day. He quit, moved backed to Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region,  and looked for a new career. One day, playing on the home PC with his kid, the monitor blew. He thought, "What the heck am I supposed to do with this thing, put it in the trash?" The answer led to a new career: electronic waste recycling. Lewis opened Hawthorne-based SoCal Computer Recyclers in 1997, and he now has a 10-person staff.

"We started by contacting the cities of Redondo Beach and Torrance and let them Know that e-waste recycling was now an option. Back then it was still legal to throw away your CRT (1) (C RunTime) See runtime library.

(2) (Cathode Ray Tube) A vacuum tube used as a display screen in a computer monitor or TV. The viewing end of the tube is coated with phosphors, which emit light when struck by electrons.
 (cathode ray tube See CRT.

(hardware) cathode ray tube - (CRT) An electrical device for displaying images by exciting phosphor dots with a scanned electron beam. CRTs are found in computer VDUs and monitors, televisions and oscilloscopes.
) monitors and TVs in California, but now it's not. Redondo Beach took the lead and we held a recycling event where people dropped off their old stuff and we recycled it.

"Now our customers are a mix of small businesses, some large clients and a lot of individuals. Companies like to recycle their computers because we are certified to erase the info on their hard drives. If they throw out the hard drives, anybody could find their company files. Individuals who recycle their computers are do-gooders--they are the same people who recycle their motor oil.

"We will recycle anything with a circuit board and a plug, anything electronic. If it's useless we will recycle it by breaking it down into basic components.

"If a computer isn't useless we will put the hard drive through the Degausser A device that removes unwanted magnetism. See degauss. , which destroys, the magnetic properties and erases the data, and then we'll try our best to get it reused in the form of a donation to a school.

"We got over 12,000 monitors last year, and we will have more this year. We are getting a lot of working monitors because people are switching over to flat-screen technology.

"In every company there is a 'dead' room where old computer parts sit in a closet. The IT guy hopes the president of the company never opens that door because if he does, the IT guy has to do something with those computers and he can't toss them. Maybe he thinks there is a magical computer fairy that will make them all disappear. I can make that happen, but I have to be called."
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Title Annotation:electronic waste recycling; Weekly Briefing
Author:Rosmarin, Rachel
Publication:Los Angeles Business Journal
Geographic Code:1USA
Date:Sep 1, 2003
Words:397
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