E-Waste Services

Dell Computers and Goodwill Industries of Rhode Island Launch Recycling Partnership

Goodwill Industries of Rhode Island has partnered with Dell to become one of their 2,220 'Reconnect' computer recycling sites across the nation. The agency is the only 'Reconnect' site in the state of Rhode Island and expects to recycle between 300,000 - 400,000 pounds of e-waste annually and create green jobs locally.  

Dell originally established the 'Reconnect' partnership with Goodwill Industries International in 2004. Since its inception more than 170 million pounds of e-waste has been diverted from landfills and about 250 green jobs have been created. Goodwill employees manage the collection and disassembly of the equipment and the donated equipment that meets the program's quality criteria is resold. Devices in need of repair are either refurbished or broken down into parts to be recycled by Dell partners.  Goodwill Industries of Rhode Island intends to utilize this operation to support their mission of providing job training and education to people with disabilities and other barriers to employment. "This is a win-win", said Jeffrey Machado, Goodwill's President and CEO. "The program allows for the agency to expand and enhance its training programs so we can prepare trainees for high wage, high demand occupations in emerging industries while also supporting an eco-friendly, social purpose business line", added Machado. 

Personal/Confidential Information AND/OR Broken hard drives: It is the responsibility of the person donating computers to remove or "wipe" the hard drives prior to donation to Goodwill. We have a very secure facility where these items are disassembled and processed for recycling, and any newer computers have the hard drives wiped exceeding Department of Defense standards, but ultimately we cannot take responsibility for confidential information.  We have never had an incident of identity theft.  If you go online, or to your local library, there are lots of free videos, detailed instructions, and resources that will allow for someone making a donation to either wipe the hard drive or remove it and destroy the data.  Two examples of software available for this purpose are available at www.dban.com or www.killdisk.com.  Goodwill Industries of RI cannot and does not endorse any particular type of software, including the two sample sites noted above.