Green Idea: TV show inspires a recycling entrepreneur

  • By Kurt Batdorf SCBJ Editor
  • Thursday, March 31, 2011 1:00am
  • Business

LYNNWOOD — For Mary Reading, entry into the business world came by chance while watching TV.

She was tuned into a special about how the U.S. was exporting much of its electronic waste to underdeveloped countries for disposal.

“I didn’t like that,” the Lynnwood native

said. “I thought, ‘Maybe we can make a change here.’ ”

With Reading’s daughter on the way to college and newfound time on her hands, Reading got to work figuring out how she could make a change happen.

“I needed a job, so why not do something environmentally friendly?” Reading said.

On a shoestring budget, Reading got a state license to recycle electronic waste in 2006 and opened E-Waste LLC in 2007 in a warehouse on Beverly Park Road, just south of Paine Field.

E-Waste’s stated mission is “to recycle your end-of-life electronics in a safe and environmentally sound manner.”

It proved to be easier said than done.

“The first year was rough,” Reading said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

To keep her operation afloat in the early days, she even kept the warehouse unheated to save money.

A positive move came when Reading linked her business with the Washington Materials Management Financing Authority, the organization that keeps track of the fees manufacturers essentially pre-pay on the sale of consumer electronics for their eventual recycling.

Reading submits to an audit by the authority twice a year to verify the recyclables go where she says they do.

One way or another, Reading observed, consumers have already paid to recycle most electronics — either with a slightly higher purchase price from the manufacturer or with a charge from the retailer. E-Waste becomes the conduit to keep that stuff out of landfills.

“We recycle 99 percent” of all processed electronics, Reading said. She audits the recycling firms with whom she does business to make sure they meet stringent state environmental rules on waste handling. She said she keeps her business dealings as close to Snohomish County as she can. Fibres International collects and bales the plastics while Pacific Topsoils finds use for the wood from old TV cabinets.

And nothing is exported to undeveloped countries, Reading said.

For consumers, K-12 schools, nonprofit groups and businesses with 50 or fewer employees, E-Waste accepts laptops, computers, cell phones, cathode-ray tube monitors and televisions of any size. The cost to recycle? Nothing.

For a small fee, E-Waste takes printers, copiers, fax machines, scanners, DVD and VHS players, cable boxes, servers, telecommunication gear, entertainment and gaming systems, stereos, PDAs, keyboards, cables and the like.

On the recycling floor, giant cardboard boxes contain computer “ribbon” wire harnesses, power supply units, computer fans, plastic housings and CD-DVD drives. Reading pointed out that she even goes to the extra expense of lining the boxes containing lead-filled TV and display monitors with heavy, $12 plastic bags to keep the inevitable broken glass contained.

Another corner of the warehouse is filled with TVs and boxes of electronics awaiting their turn at the disassembly stations nearby.

“Little by little,” Reading said, E-Waste grew so that she could expand into the adjoining warehouse. Her original space is now the storage area where the filled cardboard boxes, shrink-wrapped and marked with their weight and contents, await pickup. E-Waste now occupies 14,000 square feet.

Reading ran the business by herself at first. Now she has four full-time employees. On the day of this interview, she had two temporary employees from Command Center working on the recycling floor. She also has two part-timers with disabilities she employs on contract. One cleans the shop, the other dismantles TVs.

“I use people to recycle, not machines” like some other recycling operations, Reading said. “It’s good to hire people.”

Looking ahead five to 10 years, Reading, 48, wants to be “rich and retired,” she said with a laugh.

If that doesn’t happen, Reading will be happy to see E-Waste’s business grow along with the public’s expectations of recycling.

“It’s a pretty good thing, you know,” Reading said.

Learn more

E-Waste LLC is located at 12424 Beverly Park Road, Unit A4, Lynnwood. For operating hours and to see what electronics E-Waste accepts, call 425-239-4118 or go to www.e-wastes.com.

Kurt Batdorf: 425-339-3102; kbatdorf@scbj.com.

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