Guaranteed Recycling Xperts Inc.

• Author: Ringo, Kyle
• Position: SPOTLIGHT - Greenovation Award

SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES:

Guaranteed Recycling Xperts Inc. saves between 900,000 and 1 million pounds of electronics waste a month from being dumped into U.S. landfills and hazardous waste facilities. The company takes everything from old computers and television sets to copy machines and "any obsolete electronics" and breaks them down to core components such as plastic, heavy metals and precious metals.

All the materials are either reintroduced into the production process to be re-used in other products or are properly disposed of if they contain potentially harmful pollutants such as mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium, phosphorous or polycarbons.

GRX has a solid reputation in its field, in part, because it does not export electronics waste to developing countries where it is much less likely to be disposed of properly. GRX earned the Greenovation Award this year at the 8th Annual Colorado Technology Association Apex Awards.

The award honors organizations making measurable efforts toward minimizing or eliminating negative impacts on the environment. The company is a signer of the Basel Action Network's Pledge, which set environmental business standards for electronics recycling.

"We've inspected their facilities before we did the contract with them and each year we've used them," said Jim Schrack, environmental program supervisor for the city of Aurora, a GRX customer for several years. "We do our due-diligence inspections, and we've been very happy with those inspections."

GREEN FROM GREEN:

Company president Mike Wright said he has always played it pretty much down the center when it comes to the desire to protect the environment and the need to make money. He is not a crusader by any measure, but he enjoys the fact he has found a way to make a nice living and do some good for the planet in the process.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Wright grew up near the Rouge River in Detroit and said the water occasionally changed colors depending on what was happening at the Ford plant upstream. It was the first time he realized business and the environment can dramatically affect each other.

He purchased GRX in 2004 for less than $500,000 and began to grow it through investment and pursuing larger contracts. What was a three-person operation has become a growing company valued at...