Leads startup to successful beginning
Tiffany Welsh
Owner - Blue Ridge Computer Recycling
by Nathan Cain - Staff writer When Diamond Award winner Tiffany Welsh saw a need and started a business. Welsh already worked for herself as an accountant when a client asked her to help find a place to dispose of some old computer equipment. Welsh agreed, but could not find anywhere local to take the equipment. For that reason she decided to start Blue Ridge Computer Recycling, the only business in Western North Carolina that will take and dispose of old computer parts.
Despite being open for less than a year, business is booming. “We have more people every day than the day before,” Welsh said. Located on Glendale Road in Asheville, Blue Ridge Computer Recycling has recycled 75,000 pounds of material since opening last October.
Welsh’s husband, Ivan Shingleton, who works full-time at the recycling center, said his wife has an entrepreneurial mind. “She’s always full of ideas,” he said.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, electronics have become the largest contributor of heavy metals to the solid waste stream. Almost every part of a computer contains hazardous material, Welsh said, which makes it important that they do not end up in land fills where they can leak lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and other hazardous materials into the soil. People often have no idea exactly how much hazardous material is in computer equipment, Welsh said. A computer monitor alone can contain between six and eight pounds of lead, she said.
When Blue Ridge Recycling takes in a computer it breaks it down to its constituent parts, sorting out the metal, glass and plastic, much like people sorting their recyclable materials at home, Welsh said. Blue Ridge Computer Recycling takes computers free of charge (along with parts and accessories), but charges a handling fee for monitors, printers, backup battery systems to cover the hazardous materials handling fee. Some of the newer computers that come in are refurbished (along with erasing all proprietary and identifying information) and resold.
Welsh seeks change more on the manufacturing end, “making the equipment easier to recycle as far as disassembling and gutting hazardous material.” She sees this implemented in Europe and hopes that in future the U.S. will come on board.
Welsh said that, in addition to herself and her husband, they have one part-time employee and she expects to add a full-time employee soon.
Welsh also kept her old job providing bookkeeping, financial consultation and financial planning services to area businesses. “I like to stay busy,” she said.
In regards to winning a Diamond Award, Welsh said she was “really excited. It was something I had never expected.”