Many companies regularly update or replace IT equipment, but fail to understand the importance of ensuring the data contained is disposed correctly.
Hard drive destruction and ultimately, HDD recycling can be viewed in several ways, overwriting the drives by completely erasing the data so the drives can be reused or physically destruction, which means the drives would go for further recycling to take the drives to its base materials as recyclates. HDD recycling is essential if overwriting fails
Erasing the Hard Drive
Erasing the drives allows reuse but you should make sure that the drives are completely wiped. Using an NCSC approved software will ensure this and will allow a certificate of media erasure to be printed off on successful wipes.
However, you still need a procedure for drives that fail the wiping process. Only physical destruction then will ensure complete data removal.
Physical destruction takes two forms: shredding or crushing, but this is not the end of the process. Once the drives are destroyed they undergo further recycling.
Shredding/Crushing the Hard Drive
Once they have been shredded or crushed the drives are then shredded further and chopped into tiny particle sizes. There are then various ways of separating the materials out, including electromagnets, floating off materials in different density liquids, eddy current separators and centrifuges. This allows light metals to be separated from aluminium, the magnets are separated and the circuit boards..
How our HDD recycling service works:
- Get in touch to arrange a date and time for the drives to be collected.
- We establish you as a client, your wants and needs to the sensitivity of the data and your requirements.
- We overwrite or destroy hard drives, servers.
- Each Hard Disk Drive will be counted at the start of the process and agreed numbers.
- The drives will be allocated a job number.
- The drives serial numbers are scanned on to a Job sheet which denotes the start of recertification process.
- Certificate of PDF Media Destruction, Job Sheet and Duty of Care Notes are produced.
- This information is then stored on our Client CRM
- Our staff are hold SC Clearance
- Destroyed hard drives are recycled.
- Ferrous and non-ferrous metals are removed, then the copper-rich materials, printed circuit boards and plastics are recycled.
- We operate a zero percent landfill policy
These are returned as recyclates and would be base materials ready for a brand new production process and product.