Computer Disposal/ Disposition should not be undertaken without first researching what you, the consumer needs to do. Simply taking your old hardware to a municipal recycling centre will leave you or even your employer open to Identity theft, fraud and even mean that someone could sell on your corporate secrets.

Manhattan, the heart of Financial Institutions for America offers some highly expert Computer recyclers for Companies and Corporations. It is very important to consider some ethical and legal details before booking a pick-up though:

Does the recycler offer:

• A Limited Liability/ Company status- implying a level of professionalism

• Compliance with relevant local/ state and central government/ congressional requirements and legislation

• Data Destruction for hard drives to US government/ Dept of Defense standards

• Asset tracking for all obsolete/ faulty computer hardware. You need to know where your computers end up.

• Non export of your used computer equipment. Recycling should not mean illegal dumping or export to developing countries. (in compliance with the Basel Action Network)

Destruction of data is extremely important for financial institutions and if you process information obtained from the public and residents in America, you need to ensure that this data is never accessed by a third party. You have the option of removing hard drives from the computers before disposal (disposition), binary wiping the hard drives in house (this is very labour and time intensive) or paying your recycling company to do this for you. The latter option is in many instances a very good way of ensuring that your overheads remain low, good computers can be re-used and that your information is safely deleted forever. By entering into a contract with a recycling company and paying for specific services, a binding contract is in place, giving you sureity against any issues that may arise.