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Sustainability principles can and are being applied in many different areas. There are some organizations that promote environmental and fiscal sustainability. There are others who promote sustainable lifestyles, communities, development, and much more. While EverSafe’s business is focused on environmental sustainability through its work to recycle e-Waste generated by other businesses, our mission extends beyond promoting the advantages of electronics recycling. We want to ensure the communities in which we work are healthy, vibrant places for their residents. One of the ways we do this is by engaging in volunteer opportunities in the community. Having been founded in Minneapolis/ St Paul, we feel lucky to have a lot of great role models to look to for guidance. Corporate philanthropy has long been a tradition for businesses in this area, and we hope to continue that tradition well into the future.One of the organizations in which we’re engaged is Opportunity Partners. For over 50 years, this organization has been helping take the “dis” out of disability by training adults with mental and physical disabilities to help them find meaningful employment and become at least partly self sufficient. The wide range of individuals they work with means there’s an extremely wide range of capabilities across the people they serve. They place these individuals in everything from food service, janitorial, and light manufacturing positions to office positions in professional services firms such as public accounting.
If you are a hiring manager, consider Opportunity Partners the next time you have a project you’re thinking about outsourcing or if you find yourself needing to ramp up your staff levels for a short term project. The organization can train an individual or a team specifically for your needs. If you’re looking for a volunteer opportunity, they are always looking for business professionals with wide networks to join their Business Partnership Council and help spread the work about the value of hiring people with disabilities. EverSafe Recycling believes Opportunity Partners provides a critical service to the Minneapolis/ St Paul metro area by providing businesses with people who are passionate about making a positive contribution, and providing those with disabilities a pathway to meaningful employment and a level of self sufficiency they would have difficulty obtaining on their own. We’re happy to have the opportunity to help them in their mission!
More details about Opportunity Partners can be found at www.opportunitypartners.org.
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With current news filled with stories of high profile security breaches (think Sony, Epsilon, etc), many companies are reviewing their own practices to ensure they have adequate firewalls, passwords, antivirus software and the like. If your firm is going through this process, don’t forget to address how you handle hard drive disposal.
There are several options for effectively destroying the data on a hard drive, including destroying the drive itself. In this article we will review several options. Some of these you can do yourself, and others require the use of third party equipment. Of course all of them can be handled for you by EverSafe (and probably for less than it will cost you to do yourself). Please let us know if you’d like more information.
Do it yourself options
If you have some staff people around your company that typically have some free time between tasks, you may consider taking care of your own data destruction. The first option in this category is to run a drill press (like the one you would have in a home workshop) several times through the drive platters. The drive platters are the circular disks within a hard drive on which the data is stored. Before you do this be sure to remove the circuit board from the back of the drive [see photo]
or you could be generating lead dust, which is usually frowned upon by OSHA. We recommend running at least a 1/2” drill bit completely through the drive platters 4-5 times. The drive and the circuit board can then be given to your electronics recycler for proper disposal. A second DIY option is to use software to wipe the data from the drive. This is a great option if the computer in which the hard drive is installed is less than 5-6 years old. Computers of this age may be able to be resold by you or your recycler, resulting in a little income (rather than expense) from the disposal process. There are several software packages on the market ranging from open source products like DBAN, to professional packages like those produced by Blancco (used by EverSafe). These are priced anywhere from free to around $40 per drive. Some of these products (including SOME open source programs) are very effective, while others are a waste of money. The better software will provide detailed reporting to confirm what worked and if any part of the procedure failed. Be sure you know what you’re getting into before investing your time and money.Third party options
A third party (including EverSafe) can provide any of the methods above, and may also offer drive shredding or degaussing. Shredding involves grinding your hard drive into pieces roughly 1/2” across (size may vary depending on equipment used). Degaussing is a rather antiquated technique that involves exposing the hard drive to a very powerful magnetic field. While effective, it’s extremely power intensive, is slow, and generates a lot of excess heat. Like shredding, it too renders the drive unusable making it a less desirable option for newer computers and other hard drive containing equipment. While degaussing is rarely used making pricing is hard to find, shredding typically costs between $7 and $20 per drive (excluding pickup charges) depending on the quantity of drives you’re shredding and the certifications of the firm that’s shredding them. Another option you can discuss with your IT professional is drive encryption. This option is a bit more expensive than the rest, but has the added benefit of protecting your hard drive contents while you’re using your device, not just when you dispose of it. Like the software method described above, it also allows your drive to be reused after you’ve upgraded to a new device.
Practical considerations
When considering what techniques to employ, think about the following:
- Is your business governed by any requirements or regulations that dictate a certain technique?
- Would any harm come to your company or customers if the data was retrieved? If not, you may not need to bother with data destruction.
- What are the hiring practices of your electronics recycler? If they employ former (or current) convicts, you may want to destroy sensitive data before it leaves your premises.
- Does your company typically rotate equipment in 5 years or less, making it likely that it could be remarketed? If so, you’ll want to consider using a software option.
Third party data from hard drive manufacturers and digital forensics organizations indicate that all of these techniques can be equally effective in keeping your data safe from those who might try to steal it. Whether you’re dealing with hard drives in your computers, copy machines, or mobile phones, each technique has cost, time and reuse considerations. If you’d like to discuss which option is best for your organization, we’re here to help.
Outside resources:
Seagate’s Drive Disposal Best Practices: http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/Disposal_TP582-1-0710US.pdf
Blancco’s data erasure software: http://www.blancco.com/en/company-info/certificates-standards
