How to Start Your Own Computer Recycling Business

Although you might not know it, many companies such as Best Buy and CompUSA already have computer recycling programs in the works. But for large companies and corporations that have office buildings filled with computers, these types of computer recycling programs are ineffective and do not serve their needs. By catering to the companies that require computer recycling services, you can make money, save the environment and find yourself with a stockpile of older computers at the same time.

Computer recycling is not new by any means. Getting rid of old computers has been a problem for several decades, as old computers become obsolete and users upgrade to the next, shinier model. For personal users, this is not much of a problem. But for corporate users, recycling thousands of computers at a time is a tremendous task that quite often requires an outside, third-party company to accomplish.

If you want to cash in on the computer recycling programs, it will require some significant effort on your part. First and foremost, you'll have to make contact with all the corporations who will very likely be upgrading all of their computers every three years or so. When corporations look at their bottom line, they generally see all the money that could be made by installing faster computers, rather than the money that is spent getting rid of older computers. This makes sense, as they are looking at the return on investment that faster hardware can achieve.

By contacting these types of corporations, you can put yourself in the position of removing the old hardware for a fee. While some computer recycling businesses remove the old hardware for free, it is important to remember that some of the components that you remove will be unsuitable for resale. A small fee will make sure that you don't go in the hole while removing old computers and parts from these corporate locations. Make sure that you charge enough for fuel and time considerations, but that your price is still low enough to be competitive. Remember that there'll always be other computer recycling companies jockeying for the same clientele as yourself.

A quick and easy way to find out how much you should charge is to check the prices of your competitors. A quick search will help you find computer recycling companies that charge all manner of different types of fees and offer a multitude of different services.

It would very likely be best for you to simply charge for disposal and recycling at first, rather than offer a multitude of services. The hardest part of computer recycling is ensuring that all of the data has been wiped before you attempt to resell any hard drives. The rest of the equipment is fine as is, but hard drives will always present a problem for the clientele. Having data on the loose spells disaster for corporate players and they will most certainly take legal action if you should allow their information to leak out.

Naturally, once you have the computers in your possession, the first order of business is to resell them once they have been completely wiped. This is where the real profit comes in, as even some of the oldest and most obsolete computers can net you anywhere from $20-$50, depending on the buyer. For more recent models, you can get $150 and up for each unit. As long as you have a working hard drive and the unit boots into BIOS properly and passes the power on self test, you have a working computer and it is worth a few bucks.