Can You Recycle or Refurbish Laptops?

25
Jan

Laptops have become a staple of business. Most businesses rely on laptops for their day to day. It’s not uncommon for every team member to have a laptop. Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks to that and a question we get a lot is can you recycle or refurbish a laptop? Let’s get into that and more.

Life Cycle of a Business Laptop

Laptops for business do not tend to last as long as desktops, but there are many reasons why we commonly rely on laptops for everyday business use. This is best to keep in mind when buying new equipment. The reduce part of reduce, reuse, and recycle applies most to the acquisition phase of the IT equipment lifecycle. You should buy just the number of laptops that you need, and you should buy laptops that will last both in terms of specs and durability so that you have to worry about refurbishing and/or recycling less often.

Challenges of Using Laptops for Business

Laptops do pose a lot of challenges. For starters, they are harder, and in some cases, nearly impossible to upgrade. They have smaller screens. They are often toted around the office and even to and from home, which leads to greater security concerns as well as a higher likelihood of things breaking. At the end of the day, you are bound to go through laptops faster than you will with desktops.

We get it though, the pros outweigh the cons. Our computers are an extension of us, and going into a meeting or being at home when a situation comes up without a work computer at hand is going to be bad for most businesses. Laptops are the present and future of business, so we have to find ways to refurbish them when possible and recycle them when we can’t. In both instances, that’s where Sadoff comes in.

Refurbishing Laptops for Business

Refurbishing a laptop will depend on two things, what needs to be fixed/refurbished and what type of laptop you have. Laptops are tight compact little machines and that makes it so they are difficult to disassemble and get at components. Every laptop is different and a book could be written about refurbishing each one. The bottom line is that some are going to be able to be refurbished and some aren’t.

Again, regardless of the laptop, it will come down to what’s broken. Is it just old and not suited for your business anymore? You may not be able to update it, but you should be able to get a new hard drive in it making it perfect for resale. Broken screens, bad fans, damaged keyboards, and batteries can all usually be replaced as well. Damaged ports, especially the charge port, may be too costly to repair. If something more integral is damaged, such as a motherboard or your processor then that too may be too costly.

If you can’t refurbish it for internal use due to spec limitations, you can still refurbish it for reselling. In fact, that’s just one of the ways that Sadoff can help. We can take old laptops, destroy their data, install new data drives, and get them sold for you all without you having to lift a finger. We call it “IT Asset Remarketing.” Reach out to Sadoff today for more information.

Recycling Laptops for Business

If refurbishing doesn’t end up being an option, then you can rely on recycling, specifically e-recycling. You can’t throw a laptop in the traditional recycling. As a business, that’s against the law for pretty much all recycling bins, and if you just throw them in the trash, as a business you will be breaking federal law.

Turn to a trusted e-recycler like Sadoff. We will handle data destruction and safely e-recycle any and all laptops that you have while 100% contractually owning liability and providing certificates of destruction. Reach out to us today for an e-recycling quote.

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Categorized in: IT Asset Remarketing, IT Equipment