Recycling Today Media Group - Recycling Today magazine. : Current Issue End-of-Life Experience

Recycling Today Media Group - Recycling Today magazine. : Current Issue End-of-Life Experience

Multi-national technology company IBM, Armonk, N.Y., has been manufacturing computer equipment for as long as almost any company in the world and, therefore, has been faced with how to best handle end-of-life electronics for as long as any other company.

For the past 12 years, IBM’s Global Asset Recovery Service (GARS) has been the key division within IBM tasked with effectively managing the wide range of end-of-life equipment yielded globally by IBM’s manufacturing plants, offices and leasing operations.

According to GARS Senior Engineer and Senior Program Manager Ed Grenchus, IBM has learned a great deal about cost-effectively and responsibly handling end-of-life electronics, but the learning process does not stop since technology changes so rapidly.


GRAVITATING TOWARD RECYCLING

Ed Grenchus, senior engineer and senior program manager with the Global Asset Recovery Service (GARS) division of IBM, Armonk, N.Y., did not join the multi-national computer company as its recycling expert.

“I started out with IBM in 1978 on the technology side,” he says. “For about 18 years I was focused on printed circuit boards and components, in the manufacturing and quality engineering areas.”

The opportunity to try something else emerged in 1996, when Grenchus says he “decided to make a switch and do something entirely different by getting into asset recovery.” For IBM at that time, “It was a new area we were getting into.”

Now, 15 years later, Grenchus is a relative veteran in the electronics recycling sector. He has been involved in organizing a recycling conference hosted by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) as its conference chair and has helped shape GARS as the IBM division that is focused on product end-of-life management.

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