- March 7, 2014
- 1:44 pm
- Raymond Benton Jr
- no comments
A Company Named Isidore
I have been away from this blog for a while. It feels good to return.
I originally named this the Sustainability and Social Enterprise blog. In my post on February 27, 2013, I made the point that Environmental Sustainability—ES (which is what I intended) and Social Enterprise—SE are not the same, although they can intersect, by accident or by intention.
I just learned of a company located at the intersection of ES and SE, and it is there by intention. I read about this company in the spring 2014 issue of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s OnEarth magazine. The company, Isidore Electronics Recycling (http://www.isidorerecycling.com), is based in Los Angeles. When I looked into it I discovered that it has been quite the media darling for the past several months. Earth911, Forbes, and other outlets have recently published short articles about it. Links to these and to other online articles about the company are on its web page (look under the About button and then in the In the News tab, or just go here. There is also a nice three-minute video about the company on their web page (the front page). It is worth watching.
California, like many states, has two big problems. Their landfills are overflowing and their prisons are overflowing. How do you help solve both problems while making money? You create a sustainability focused social enterprise.
The environmental connection is clear: electronics recycling. The social enterprise connection is less obvious.
The Environmental Piece. Driven by technological advances, planned obsolescence, and the felt need on the part of consumers to have the newest gadget (although what we presently have is functional and not obsolete), electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream world over. Isidore picks up and recycles used electronics. They dismantle, by hand, higher-grade materials, such as computers and power units, and sell the collected material—the metals, plastics, circuit boards and wire—to certified processors. Eventually that material becomes new products. Isidore sends lower-grade components, such as printers and keyboards, to certified downstream partners who pull out the glass, plastics, and miscellaneous electronic components for recycling. R2 and e-Stewards were both mentioned in one of the articles I read.
This is good for everybody. Toxic e-waste dumped in area landfills—where it can get into our drinking water, into our ground soil, into our lives—is not in the best interest of public safety.
The Social Enterprise Piece. Isidore is not a social enterprise because it is into recycling (of e-waste or any other waste). They are a social enterprise because of how they dismantle the electronic waste they collect. First, I presume you understand that the vast amount of global e-waste goes to China for recycling. If you don’t know much about the process, I suggest Adam Mintor’s Junkyard Planet (2013), a book about the global trade in waste, all waste. He has vivid descriptions of the trade and the processes.
So what does Isidore do that makes it a social enterprise? It employs previously incarcerated people to demanufacture, to dismantle, electronic waste that no longer has useful life (in its present form). Oh, and they do it in California rather than in China. When we send our e-waste to China we both add to the carbon footprint of that waste (not a clever idea) and we ship jobs overseas (also not a clever idea).
Isidore is an on-the-job training and employment program for ex-inmates, job seekers that have great difficulty finding employment. The recidivism rates for the formerly incarcerated are high, too, something related (one presumes) to their inability to find jobs (as well as the failure of our prison systems). In California seven out of ten people who leave a correctional facility return within three years. What is true of California is likely true of Illinois, Colorado, and any other state.
I can already hear the echo of the disgruntled. “Of course,” so goes the refrain, “this happens—in California. Where else could it happen?” Actually, as I read more about this company I discovered that Kabira Stocks, founder (and CEO) of Isidore Electronics Recycling, is actually from Philadelphia and that she got the idea of recycling e-waste and hiring ex-inmates to do it from an Indianapolis based company: RecycleForce (http://www.recycleforce.org). The basic business model was, according to Forbes, theirs. Kabira adopted it.
If it can happen in Los Angeles and in Indianapolis it can happen in Chicago, Denver, Boston and any other metropolitan area. It may be happening elsewhere now. Who knows? I don’t! It is worth looking into. I am curious (but not curious enough right now to investigate what is happening in Illinois).
From what I have read, it is not clear that the “certified processors” to which Isidore sells the metals, plastics, circuit boards and wire are located in the United States. They may well be in China, and now that I have read Junkyard Planet I think it is a good chance they are. A little digging or a phone call might get the answer. Whatever the answer, it does not detract from what Isidore Electronic Recycling does.
They keep some e-waste out of the landfills and they provide some job training and employment for the previously incarcerated, thereby (we hope) helping to reduce, even if only somewhat, the recidivism rate for ex-inmates. And they make money in the process. This is a true tripple-bottom line company.
Note: Here are some interesting figures. The United States has roughly five percent of the world’s population yet we contribute 29 percent of the CO2 emissions (Greenpeace using WRI data — also see New Scientist, and we have 23 percent of the world’s prison population (Forbes). What our general contribution to waste, or specifically to e-waste, is I do not know. That, too, is probably discoverable.