Back Thru The Future

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:03:19 +0000

Melanie Haga wondered what would happen to old computers—now she runs a company that recycles them. In the early 1980s, personal computers cost anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000. As the marketing representative for a computer leasing company, Melanie Haga was responsible for promoting a program that allowed customers to lease pricey computers and later exchange them for newer models. “Back then, borrowing one computer for an entire office was a big deal,” she says. When she was laid off by the leasing company, Haga decided to start her own business.

She called her company Back Thru the Future and focused on buying and selling used computers. After running the business out of her home for a year, Haga noticed that she always had leftover computer cords, power strips, external disk drives, and other accessories. She was also troubled by the cost of shipping whole computers. Then she had an epiphany: She could break down the old computers into their component parts and sell the motherboard, power supplies, and drivers one by one, just as scrap dealers do with used car parts. Haga changed the company’s focus from brokering to parts resale. Soon her house was so overrun with electronic debris that, in 1991, she moved the business into a 10,000-squarefoot warehouse.

Over the next five years, Haga opened similar locations in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Jose. (Now the warehouses are consolidated in New Jersey.) But even after selling off the parts, she was still left with the computers’ non-reusable metal and plastic casings. Getting rid of the metal was easy—Haga drove it in her truck to scrap centers—though with no state guidelines in place, she couldn’t ensure that it met an eco-friendly end. Dealing with the plastic was more difficult. Haga petitioned the major computer manufacturers to take responsibility for recycling the waste—to no avail. “The computer companies put me on hold and sent me through the phone systems with no answers,” she says. “They wouldn’t recycle or take anything back.” Out of options, Haga reluctantly discarded the leftover plastic at local dumps.

Finally, the industry began to catch up with Haga’s vision; 1998 saw the start of the International Association of Electronics Recyclers, among other groups. Then, in 2000, as part of a pilot program for recycling electronics, the State of New Jersey classified Back Thru the Future as an intelligent segregator. Now the company has the authority to send computer parts to reliable recycling facilities. “I had been trying for so long to be heard,” she says. “At last the government got the word out that computers must be handled properly.”

Today Haga brings in more than $1 million each year and shares ownership of the company with her husband of 14 years. “I started this business because I needed an income,” says Haga, who, on most days, is decked out in steel-tipped boots and perched behind the wheel of the warehouse forklift. “I had no idea I would become a pioneer in the recycling effort.”

Girl Powered Planet » Back Thru The Future

Back Thru The Future