Retired I.T. assets can waste space, collect dust and lose value. However, improper disposal of decommissioned hardware can threaten data security, your company’s brand and regulatory compliance.
Secure IT Asset Disposition and data destruction offers maximum value recovery while supporting a circular economy.
Electronic assets will either be recycled or refurbished. Regardless of their path, all sensitive data is securely destroyed by clearing, purging or physical destruction. All three methods are used at Cobalt and are certified by NIST.
Your organization’s electronic equipment will be sent through our innovative shredding system to be processed for recycling or sanitized and refurbished so they can be resold. Both promote sustainability & a circular economy.
The entirety of a computer is recyclable. Computers and their accessories contain many hazardous materials and components such as lead and batteries, so they must be responsibly destroyed to protect the environment and your brand.
Internal hard drives, external hard drives, flash drives, thumb drives, and all other electronic memory storage devices are recyclable. Don’t worry! Cobalt offers secure data destruction for all business electronics that may contain sensitive personal and business information.
Most interior components of network equipment like servers, routers, switches, and modems contain sensitive data. Since mercury is a neurotoxin, it shouldn’t simply be thrown in the trash. Cobalt can dismantle these end-of-life assets for your business and shred them properly.
Many states have banned cellphones and smartphones from landfills due to the toxins that are released into the environment during disintegration. LCD phone, tablet, and e-reader screens are extremely vulnerable and breakable. Research has shown that the liquid crystal and indium negatively impact the environment.
Like cellphones and smartphones, many states have banned the disposal of tablets and laptops in landfills. Instead of letting your company’s old laptops take up space in a closet, have Cobalt inspect and gather them with our White Glove Service so we can properly recycle them.
We’re fully capable of recycling all variations of household and industrial printers, copiers, and scanners. This type of office equipment can all be dismantled and processed properly by Cobalt.
Many components of computer accessories are recyclable. Speakers, keyboards, and other accessories contain toxic substances like brominated flame retardants that aren’t permitted in landfills, for good reason. That specific substance prevents the equipment from overheating during the operating process, but in landfills, it seeps off and mixes into the soil. This has an incredibly negative impact on our environment.
Non-biodegradable memory modules like circuit boards contain sensitive information and must be disposed of properly. Through our data destruction and electronics recycling processes, Cobalt has the capability of separating these reusable and non-reusable parts.
Many landfills don’t accept TVs and monitors due excessive amounts of lead in them. CRT monitors which have become obsolete contain four to eight pounds of lead, which could be very harmful to the environment if disposed of improperly. Cobalt accepts analog and digital TVs of all sizes for recycling.
Electronic medical records have added to health care practitioners’ patient privacy burden. Cobalt can securely destroy sensitive patient data stored by health care systems, in full compliance with HIPAA regulations.
Electrical wiring is considered recyclable scrap metal because of the interior copper. Phone charger cables, audio cords, and standard electrical wire are all recyclable at Cobalt.
Cobalt is an R2 Certified electronics recycling facility. This is the industry’s leading certification – designed to help ensure the quality, environmental responsibility, and social responsibility of R2 Certified facilities.
Choosing Cobalt means protecting yourself against the possibility that your old assets come back to haunt you long after they’re out of sight, and more importantly, you’re protecting the environment from the hazardous effects of e-waste.
Data destruction is a process that securely eliminates information stored on hard drives and other data bearing equipment, rendering it completely unreadable and unrecoverable. Total data destruction can be achieved either by using software to wipe a storage device or physically dismantling and shredding it. Cobalt’s on-site destruction services employ a mobile shredding unit that instantly turns hard drives into pieces that can never be accessed or reassembled. Cobalt is the premier certified provider of secure data destruction for decommissioned electronics.
There are three data destruction options:
Clearing, Purging, and Destroying.
These are broad descriptors for different techniques used to render the target data on the media impossible to recover. These are the standards set forth by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The NIST guidelines stress that no one method is superior to the others. All are recommended and secure measures for eliminating risks posed by stored data.
Deleting files does not always permanently destroy your data. Deleting files makes data harder to find but leaves it on the hard drive and can still be recovered with special software tools or hardware devices. To ensure complete data destruction, it is recommended to use secure data sanitization.
Contrary to popular belief, a factory reset does not truly destroy data. After a factory reset, there is no way to verify that all data was permanently erased. It’s best to have professional data destruction services performed to guarantee maximum security.
All businesses, regardless of size, need to take data security seriously. Despite a common belief that only large companies like Microsoft and Apple are targeted by threat actors, 43% of U.S. corporate data breaches in 2021 involved small businesses. Certified data destruction services can ensure that companies keep their data secure and their clients’ information safe.
The cost of data destruction services can vary depending on the needs and size of the job. However, the costs of data destruction services doesn’t compare to the devastating costs of a data breach. Data breaches can be financially burdensome and ruin a company’s reputation, so data destruction is a small investment for a lot of security and peace of mind.
We use representative sampling verification following our data sanitization process to ensure the data is truly untraceable. This verification process helps raise any red flags about incomplete data sanitization. Randomly sampling different sections looking for unexpected data adds an additional level of certainty and security.
Through our certifications, we follow rigorous standards to responsibly recycle electronic waste including detailed documentation. We can provide the following:
Not only do these documents provide extra peace of mind, but they are necessary for many regulations and audits your business may do.
With more threat actors targeting companies than ever before, businesses need to handle their data storage devices more responsibly and carefully. Doing so will reduce and mitigate the risks of a data breach that could ruin their reputation and result in massive losses.
Sometimes, you’ll have to deal with a hard drive or other data-bearing equipment that’s reached the end of its life. It’s ready to be recycled,
Certified data destruction services are the key to knowing that the information stored on your hard drives and other equipment are completely removed from every single unit you recycle, rendering it completely unrecoverable and unreadable.
Read on to learn about certified data destruction and the benefits it offers.
