If a business has access to tens of billions of dollars in potential product value, one would think companies in that industry would do anything in their power to achieve that potential.
But within the e-scrap industry, a lot of value gets left behind due to companies leaving their old devices enrolled in private security systems, and those who end up with the items say their options remain limited to unlock maximum payback.
A group of panelists discussed device unenrollment during the E-Scrap Conference on Oct. 26 in New Orleans. While companies may have legitimate privacy reasons for leaving devices enrolled in corporate security programs, the recyclers and ITAD companies that inherit these devices have to pay people to perform laborious anti-locking measures or, in some cases, dismantle devices for pennies on the dollar as compared to keeping those items intact.
Getting enrolled devices accessible in the secondary market is another example of the evolution the ITAD industry has engaged in for years, according to Cheryl Coleman, senior vice president of advocacy, safety and sustainability at the Recycled Materials Association (ReMA). Discarded electronics generated worldwide in 2022 contained an estimated $91 billion worth of metals, according to the Global E-waste Monitor 2024, underscoring the value Coleman said the industry should work to preserve.
“Used electronics maintain their value. That value does not disappear when tech moves on,” she said. “When a device or even a component within that device has maximized its potential in that setting, that doesn’t mean it has no value. It’s not about the beginning of the end. It’s about the beginning of the next value decision.”
That value decision has to take into account mobile device management (MDM) and enrollment systems, including Android Enterprise and Apple Business Manager, according to Craig Boswell, president of ITAD provider HOBI International. While acknowledging the need for companies to protect their sensitive information through programs such as these, he said those companies’ unwillingness to unenroll devices costs businesses like his time and money.
About 30% of the devices that enter his facility are still enrolled, he said. And devices lose value daily, meaning every day that ITAD companies wait for help in unlocking devices results in diminishing returns. Some companies don’t have the time or storage space to keep devices around for long, either.
“Some ITADS scrap anything that can’t be unenrolled in 30 days,” he said. “That hampers circular economy efforts.”
Designing MDM systems with the end of a device’s service life in mind would be a huge step toward solving this problem, according to Casey Dingfelder, executive vice president of ITAD company Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations. ITAD companies need to reinforce the desire to have MDM programmers incorporate unenrollment into their products in order to bring about change, he said.
“Our customers don’t like this, either,” he said. “It costs them money, having to call their IT guy seven times. It’s ineffective.”
So would education, Boswell said. If companies could tell ITAD companies and recyclers how to unenroll devices, that would eliminate the issue — although, he acknowledged, companies might open themselves to privacy violations without proper protocols.
But the issue costs companies money, so he suggested charging companies rent for devices that remain enrolled beyond a certain timeframe: “Make them feel some of the pain we’re feeling,” he said.
A financial impact has helped mitigate the problem for Dynamic, Dingfelder said. His company negotiates corporate contracts that incorporate language about security software and the unenrollment process. Included are stipulations and fees for noncompliance.
“That tends to work well,” he said.
Traction on the issue could come from the legislative angle, Boswell said. But the regulatory route is a last resort, he said.
“If we don’t make traction in other ways, there is the potential to take a policy approach to this,” he said. “It’s not going to be quick. It’s going to be very painful.”
Coleman agreed, citing some states’ extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws as one example. Where some laws call for the collection of devices, there is little guidance beyond that in terms of how to meaningfully get the items or their components back into circulation.
Government generally isn’t an answer, she said, because officials lacking insights into given industries apply one-size-fits-all solutions that rarely tackle problems in full. Concepts such as EPR should instead be tools, she said, that are one part of an overall solution. In this case, legislation to speed up secure unenrollment would be useful, but only with proper input from those who know the industry.
States potentially adopting different programs also complicates operations for larger companies, according to Amanda Buros, vice president of compliance and contracts for IT lifecycle company CXtec, who moderated the discussion. Forcing one device to go through different processes in different states only complicates matters, she said.
“It’s a whole matrix of things we’re now having to evaluate outside the traditional flow,” she said.
Companies going the legislative route need to make sure they have a seat at the table when such laws are under consideration, she said. But more meaningful, immediate change could come from creating the right market conditions to facilitate reuse, refurbishment, recycling and component recovery.
“That requires the right infrastructure, markets and economic conditions,” she said. “The question is not, ‘How do we manage electronics at the end of their current life?’ It’s now, ‘How do we keep the value of electronics and their materials in use for as long as possible?’ ”
Unenrollment remains, panelists agree, a key problem to overcome in order to unlock every possible revenue stream and a truly circular supply chain.
“Manufacturers can’t design products for circularity with this as part of the problem,” Dingfelder said. “Some of the stuff feels so hidden, and really it should be visible.”
