Ringling College of Art and Design
OP-20: Electronic Waste Recycling Program

Ringling College's Institutional Technology Department uses a secured recycle receptacle for all institutional generated e-waste. When electronics are at end-of-life, they are disposed of through a surplus electronics collector registered with the Environmental Protection Agency, number: EPA FLR000187005. As stated in their mission statement and URL, The mission at Intech AR is to provide residence, businesses, schools, and governments a safe, secure, convenient, and reliable means of electronics disposal that meets all local, state, and federal regulations while providing exceptional service to accommodate the needs of customers. Intech AR is licensed, insured, and registered with the EPA. www.intechar.com. Given that the College does not de-manufacture electronics, personnel is not exposed to any hazardous materials so worker safety would be limited to proper lifting of the equipment as outlined in the College's Environmental Health and Safety guidelines.

a.) Ringling's first priority is to reuse equipment whenever possible. As an example, a new lab with non-compute intensive needs was created using iMacs that had been taken out of service.
b.) Secondly, IT personnel refurbish or upgrade technology gears by adding more memory and larger capacity hard drives, or upgrading processors, etc.
c.) The third step for obsolete, viable electronics is to donate them to schools, libraries, and charitable organizations.
d.) Step four is to sell obsolete gears to a certified re-saler who will process and sell them, keeping them out of the e-waste stream.
e.) Step five is to return the gears to the original manufacturer provided they offer a recycling service. 25 states have mandated that manufacturers offer e-waste recycling. The majority use the Producer Responsibility approach where the manufacturer must offer and pay for the recycling. Several companies have been doing this voluntarily for quite some time including Apple, HP, and Dell.
f.) The final step is to dispose of the gears through our registered recycler Intech AR who de-manufactures the electronics, salvaging viable individual components and recycling the remainder.

Student Life provides designated receptacles for student-generated electronic waste. In addition, Facilities Operations provides receptacles to collect and recycle functioning electronics during student move-out which are subsequently donated to Goodwill Industries.