Over the past few years state and federal governments have imposed very specific requirements in the transporting, handling, and processing of Universal Electronic Waste. These guidelines have been embraced and applauded by the legitimate recycling community as a basic standard that must be adhered to.

While these government imposed regulations are minimum requirements for doing business, we at Zak Enterprises believe that our customers and the community expect more out of their chosen recycling partner. Our goal is to be an expert and consultant to our customers on environmental and data security issues related to the disposal of obsolete or unwanted electronic equipment. Our differentiating value is our expertise on the subjects and our implementation of the processes required to protect our customers interest.

Click links below to read more about specific areas of Compliance :

• Department of Toxic Substance Controls (DTSC) Compliance

• Recyclers Pledge of True Stewardship

• Disk Drive Wiping in Compliance with DOD Standard DOD5220.22-M

The DTSC is one of six boards within the California Environmental Protection Agency. DTSC’s mission is to restore, protect, and enhance the environment, to ensure public health, environmental quality and economic vitality, by regulating hazardous waste.

According to the DTSC, Universal wastes are hazardous wastes that are more common and pose a lower risk to people and the environment than other hazardous wastes. State regulations identify universal wastes and provide straightforward rules for transporting, handling, recycling, and disposing of them. The regulations called the “Universal Waste Rule” are in the California Code of Regulations, title 22, division 4.5 chapter 23.

Zak Enterprises is registered with the DTSC and in compliance with all DTSC regulations in regards to Universal Waste. Zak Enterprises is certified by the DTSC to be a Universal Waste Transporter as well as a Large Scale Handler of Universal Waste. These are two significant distinctions as any corporation or agency that releases Universal Waste to non registered transporters and handlers is in violation of the DTSC mandate for Universal Waste Generators and as such is in violation of the law.

For more information please visit :  www.dtsc.ca.gov

Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship 

Zak Enterprise was one of the original 15 recyclers in the United States to endorse The Recyclers Pledge of True Stewardship as drafted by BAN, an international organization focused on halting the exporting of toxic materials from rich countries to poor countries. The Recyclers Pledge simply asks legitimate recycling companies to take responsibility for the material they pledge to recycle and do so in a way that is safe for the global environment.

Though government regulations restrict toxic material from being dumped in domestic landfills, there are no such restrictions on shipping toxic waste out of the country and dumping it in poor countries, this is wrong. We strongly back organizations such as BAN and encourage corporate responsibility in proactively working with your recycling partners to make sure they are in compliance with these guidelines.

For more information on BAN please visit :  www.ban.orgg

Disk Drive Wiping in Compliance with DOD Standard DOD5220.22-M

While all legitimate recycling companies must comply with DTSC regulations for handling toxic material, there are very few that do so while also complying to the strict guidelines as laid out in the “Recyclers Pledge of True Stewardship. Zak Enterprises understands that being a good global citizen is vital to the future of our planet but we also realize that we have a responsibility to our customers to protect any and all confidential information that is transferred from our customers to us.

 The number one source of confidential information we obtain comes through our doors residing on the disk drives of computers we are tasked to recycle. The fastest growing exposure of company confidential information as well as employee personal information comes from used disk drives is called IDCI (Inadvertent Disclosure of Confidential Information). Though many companies are not aware of potential IDCI weaknesses in their company it is probably the biggest back door security threat most companies endure.

Things such as confidential documents, employee medical records,  passwords, company address books, and credit card numbers are just a few of the sensitive documents residing on the computers of most employees. Simple erasing or formatting of disk drives is not sufficient to completely eradicate all information from disk drives. Zak Enterprises has instituted a process for which every single disk drive that enters our facility is wiped completely clean in compliance with the Department of Defense standard DOD5220.22-M.

We are not talking about some of the drives, some of the time, we process every drive every time. This is a time consuming process but one we deem to be crucial to protect our customers from IDCI. If your current recycling partner is not processing everyone of your drives to this standard you could be sitting on a time bomb that could mean significant liability to your company.