Sims Talks Electronic Recycling with TMCnet

As the rest of the world goes green and starts recycling, there is one company that has already been ahead of that curve for 10 years – Sims Recycling Solutions.

Sims, the world’s largest electronics recycler, is a global company that originated in Australia that boasts over 49 operations on five continents and processes over 475,000 tons of e-waste each year. Through its strategic partnerships in other countries, Sims is able to offer electronics recycling services in over 80 locations worldwide. 

“We have gone from no business in 2002 – we didn’t exist – to having 49 locations globally,” Stephen Skurnac, president of the North America division of Sims, told TMCnet. “We have 1,500 employees worldwide and in the last fiscal year, ended June 30, we recycled almost a billion pounds of electronic scrap globally.”

From computers to cell phones to photo copiers, Sims uses a comprehensive recovery process to unlock the value in electronic business assets while still providing high levels of data security.

Sims first got into the electronic recycling business a decade ago when the EU passed ground-breaking legislation that said individuals and companies could no longer place items like printers, computers, telephones and scanners in landfills; instead those items had to be recycled.  

Since then, Sims has become the largest electronic and electrical equipment recovery and recycling company in the world, according to company officials. And in places like North America, for example, where only about 15 percent of the three million tons of electronic waste that is generated each year is recycled, Sims is really trying to make its mark.

Recently, Sims became a member of the Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA), an international Association that implements security standards for logistics pipelines in an effort to fight against cargo crime. Members of TAPA work together and share information to prevent thefts, develop supply chain security standards, and work with government agencies.

“TAPA is an industry standard for secure transportation and we felt it was important to join TAPA because it demonstrated that we will have a good chain of custody when we take materials from offices,” Skurnac said. “A lot of times we take computers off of work stations, wipe data off of them, remarket if we can or recycle responsibly, but the customer that we pick it up from has some comfort that it is really being recycled.”

When asked what makes Sims stand out amongst other recycling companies, Skurnac said, “We are the biggest.”

“We are a global organization so for our corporate customers, we can provide recycling services around the world so that they don’t have to have 20 vendors,” he said. “They can hire Sims and we can do it anywhere. That’s a big plus for corporate customers. We have consistent standards; all our sites are certified and that lets them know they are getting the same level of service wherever they go.”

To hear more about Sims from Skurnac, check out the video below.