Woman-owned Charlestown business tackles the problem of electronic waste

Family members pitch in to run creative recycling business

By Will Collette

Phyllis Hutnak, owner of Carolina-based Indie Cycle LLC, credits her son Nate Hutnak for the idea. “He was living in Providence and saw so many old computers, TVs, air conditioners and other electronic goods left at the curb. Before long, those TVs were broken up for the copper and the broken glass and debris was just left there.”

She explained that electronic waste isn’t eligible for regular curbside pick-up and should not be hidden in with the rest of the trash. “It’s hazardous waste. You don’t want to put that stuff in a landfill.” Not to mention it’s illegal. “We are always getting TVs with big orange stickers on them saying that they can’t be thrown out with the trash.”

She and her family felt the existing options weren’t adequate to deal with the growing problem. The occasional special pick-up days were fine, but not enough. So the idea for Indie Cycle LLC, a business that collects electronic waste either at community events, such as farmers’ markets, or for large items like TVs, by pick-up, was born.

They also do commercial pick-ups most common when an office is upgrading its computer systems. A “certificate of destruction” can be provided to those businesses that are required to account for old hard drives and equipment.

So where does all of this stuff go? I mentioned to Phyllis that I recalled that years back, electronic waste “recycling” had a bad reputation where the material was simply dumped in Third World countries and picked over by the very poor, including children. So I wanted to know what happens once she collects electronic waste from clients or sites.

“We don’t store any of the waste,” she said. “We go to where the waste is, load it on one of our two trucks and then take the waste to ORS (Office Recycling Solutions) in East Greenwich.” ORS is “R-2 certified” meaning they have been recognized by EPA as meeting the standards for “Responsible Recycling.” Phyllis said she would only use R-2 vendors, as does ORS. The goal of EPA's R-2 program is zero landfill use.

"There is a lot of valuable material in those electronics,” she said. In addition to copper, some electronics contain gold, silver, palladium, rare earth minerals and other material that should not be trashed. The steel and aluminum cases are also recyclable. “We get paid by the pound for collecting the electronic goods and offer free drop off events in return."

Phyllis and Rep. Donna Walsh discussed ways new state legislation
might get more e-waste recycled and out of landfills

Rep. Donna Walsh, author of several successful recycling bills, was part of the conversation. She and Phyllis discussed how to increase services for the huge amount of electronic waste that still needs to be recycled properly in Rhode Island.

Recently, Charlestown recycling efforts suffered a set-back when the town ended free drop-off of recyclable electronic goods at the transfer station, cutting off one convenient way for residents to responsibly get rid of old or unwanted TVs, printers and so on.

“Convenience is the key,” said Phyllis. “We go to the farmers’ markets because we know that many of the people who go care about the environment and it's convenient for them to drop-off their old electronics for recycling. We take anything with a wire."

But elsewhere, especially in the cities, if there are no convenient ways to recycle electronics, it will either be thrown in the trash or left in the street. Neither is a good idea.

Phyllis feels there must be reliable, convenient ways for people to recycle their electronics. “The cities could set a particular day of the month for curbside pick-up. If the city can’t do the pick-ups, contractors like us can do it.”

She said that even though the state pulled back the electronics recycling program (the reason why Charlestown no longer does it), most transfer stations still have the PODs that were left there by a previous contractor and a new electronics contractor now collects the materials.  

E-waste is a huge and growing problem. The Electronics Take-back Coalition estimates the US generates 3.4 million tons, but only recycles around 1 million tons or less than 30%.

Every time a new I-Phone comes out, there are lots of slightly older I-Phones in need of recycling. Between 2012 and 2014, Americans bought almost 400 million new smart phones, rendering a similar number obsolete. There’s about 50 pounds of recoverable gold in every one million phones.

Phyllis’s business is one of a new wave of small Rhode Island businesses looking at electronics recycling as a good business opportunity that is also good for the environment. These companies were recently featured here.

She explained, “My husband Anthony and I are doing this part-time on the weekends, mostly through collections at community events, plus we provide weekday pick-ups on Wednesday through Friday. When the business presented with so many opportunities for free drop off events, we invested in a second truck.”

But the need is out there and I’d love to see this Charlestown business succeed by being the answer to an ever-growing e-waste problem in local RI communities. And Charlestown could help by working with them to restore a convenient way for Charlestown to recycle their e-waste. It might be one way to reverse Charlestown’s terrible recycling record.