Adam Torres and Max Montes discuss E-waste recycling.
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Show Notes:
E-waste recycling is an important part of managing our carbon footprint. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Max Montes, Sales Manager at Full Circle Electronics dba Cal Micro Recycling, explore the world of e-waste recycling and what consumers should know.
About Full Circle Electronics dba Cal Micro Recycling
Full Circle Electronics Group is a safe, secure, and sustainable electronics recycling provider specializing in scalable asset and decommissioning recycling processes for small to large industries. With locations across the country and internationally, the company’s certified destruction capabilities efficiently serve the needs of Fortune 1000 companies requiring the safe destruction of data and materials.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today I have Max Montez on the line and he’s a sales manager over at Full Circle Electronics doing business as Cal Micro Recycling.
Max, welcome to the show. Hey, glad to be here. Thanks, Adam. Good morning. , I’m excited and let’s get this going. Yeah. So I know you were referred over to us by Tony over at Megamix Expo. So is CalMicroRecycling going to be there as an exhibitor talk about the participation?
Yeah, we’re going to be an exhibitor. We got a boost out there. We’re really excited. It’s our first time going to the Megamixers down at in Santa Anita. Yeah. So we’re super excited. I’ve looked at it. It looks last year’s looked awesome. So we’re glad to be a part of it and really looking forward to it.
I’ll tell you, man. So I’ve been doing this interview series for the organizers getting to know some of the businesses that are attending and, you know, their services, what they do, all that good stuff. And there’s some people that have been there since the beginning and they keep coming back.
And I’m like, man, what keeps you coming back? They’re like, Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? The businesses, the people that come, like the vendors, like the, the community that comes. comes out in support. They say it’s like nothing else. So I’m excited. This will be my first year as well.
So we’re both going for the first. So it’s gonna be fun. We’re gonna be doing some interviews and some other things on site. Have you ever been to that? San Anita Park just in general. Have you ever been to that? Yeah, I have actually I like bet on horse racing, so I’ve been there a couple of times.
Oh man, so you’re going home. You’re like, and you get to go there for work? What? Yeah, it’s gonna be a fun time, and it’s actually a beautiful park, a great area. It’s by the mall. So I’m hoping the weather is gonna be a nice day, and I’m just really excited to meet other entrepreneurs, other businesses, you know, and kind of, you know, help each other out and see what it’s all about down there.
Yeah. and it overlooks them just for everybody that hasn’t been there, overlooks the Mart, the mountains, and it’s just all, it’s all kinds of things. Like it’s a beautiful area. Yeah. Yeah. Really beautiful. I love it. So, Max, I want to go a little bit further into CalMicro Recycling. So maybe tell us a little bit more about the company and what you do.
Perfect. , first, I’m going to start off by giving you kind of like our mission and our vision statements. So our mission statement is Earth is our client and mankind is our family. We service our planet by servicing others, living by our core values, leveraging our resources to improve the lives of our employees, clients, business partners in our community.
And going a little bit more into our vision, we’re a multi state innovative recycling company achieving exemplary sustainability standards by focusing on the growth of our people and giving back to those communities as well. So we’re really involved in, helping businesses, but also helping our communities doing like we do a lot of outreach.
Community events for e waste recycling, fundraisers to help non profits, school districts, you know get a little bit rebate money back and it’s kind of good for both parties where cleaning up the community keeping hazardous material out of the landfills and, you know, recycling it the right way and responsible way.
, how’d you originally get into this business? Like , how did you discover it? So it’s kind of funny. So a lot of people, when they say recycling, they think of cans and bottles, but I never knew how huge electronic recycling is. And it’s, and it’s really huge. So I actually started about 15 years ago.
I applied and never looked back. We kind of grew and now are one of the largest recyclers in California. We’re actually a nationwide as well in Mexico, as well as in Columbia. Yeah. Yeah. So here at this facility, you were there for much of that growth too, right? 15 years? Like how old is the company?
I’m kidding. Roughly. I’m not putting you on the spot to have the exact year, but roughly about 18 years. Wow. So you’ve been there. So you’ve been riding that growth. Like , what do you think makes this so like successful? What do you think? I mean, lot of work you guys are doing.
Yes, definitely. Our team in our, you know, our culture, we have a lot of core values and we have a lot of team members that go by those, which is integrity, leading by example, team players, pioneering and just being overall responsible. And you know, I think. People recognize that companies recognize and, you know, they like to work with us because we, you provide those, core values in our work life.
And go maybe further into the recycling industry in general for tech. Like, is this just. Is this industry like set to keep on growing? Like, give us a little bit. I’m not too familiar with it. So that’s like what you just said a moment ago about like most people think about like recycling, maybe metals or things like that, but I don’t know too much about the tech side of like what happens to our electronics after we use them.
So maybe give us a little bit of education here. This is fun.
Yeah, so in California, it’s kind of different. There’s, something called an SB20 program, which if you buy a TV, you pay a recycling fee as a consumer. And you’re paying that recycling fee for it to get properly recycled.
And so we do that for the state of California, the TVs, we collect them, we recycle over 1. 5 million pounds a month of TVs. Wow, did you say 1. 5 million? Yeah, every month. , it’s, we have guys breaking them down and we properly recycle the plastic. The, the boards, they get smelted down. The boards, all the precious metals get extracted.
So that’s the SB20 program. Then we go on to other stuff. You guys are working, man. That’s a lot of weight. It is, trust me. We, we, recycle, cause that’s just one aspect of the TVs, but total a year, we’re recycling over 35 million pounds a year. Wow. Yeah. So it’s amazing.
Yeah. How many people work there? That’s amazing. It’s huge. At this location in Ontario we have 70. Wow. Man. I love it. Shout out to everybody. And why is this recycling component so important? Like talk about that maybe a bit. You know, we California is a very green state, and, you know, they really want to keep stuff out of the landfill, you know, and, preserving our environment, , we’re doing a good thing, if we can make this earth last any longer, , we’re doing it by reducing the carbon footprint, you know what I mean and It’s just a, it’s a great thing.
And not only do we recycle, we also reuse. So if we could actually refurbish the product and put it back out into the public, we do that as well. So we’re R2 responsible recycler. Hmm. , and what does the R2 mean? I don’t know. Give me some of that. So R2 is just a set of guidelines and principles that assure electronics are recycled in an environmentally responsible way, and standards that protects workers health, safety, and data security.
And also, if we’re going to refurbish something, it undergoes a meticulous refurbishment process, with skilled technicians that assess, repair, and upgrade products to ensure functions are like new, so someone can reuse it. How does somebody work with full circle electronics? How does the recycling products, whether it’s a TV or otherwise, how does it make it to, Cal micro recycling? How does that take place? So there’s different channels. One you could be a local business.
Our Fortune 500 company could call us. We could set up like a service, like a monthly service, weekly service, whatever that may be. Two, we have residential drop offs for the public. And then in California, they have a program where you could be a state certified collector. And we work with those collectors.
Like, they collect and we’ll pick up big shipments for them. But it all comes from the community. It all comes from, you know, end users. And talk to me a little bit more about the collector side of that. That’s interesting. So a collector they get certified by state of California to collect the electronic waste.
So they collect it. So they might be picking up TVs, like just to be like, like picking up TVs or things like that. They might have be a small business owner and they have like a sign in front that says TVs you know what I mean? Like, , they might have some trucks or something else like that at my offer.
I’m just trying to figure it out, like the business out. Yeah, exactly. They might have schedule where they’re going to 10 locations to fill up a truck. As we’re picking up in bulk, we go to one location, but we could do small locations too. But the collectors, they’re more collecting us as a recycler.
We’re focused more on the dismantling and the recycling of the product. How many collectors? And again, I’m asking you for a lot of numbers, but it’s just fascinating to me. Cause this is like, I get to see into your world. How many collectors would you say there are out there? Like in general? Yeah. There’s roughly 250 to 300 collectors in California, and there’s wow.
Recyclers like me. There’s actually like, I wanna say 12 to 15 recyclers in California. Wow. You’re talking tens of millions of pounds, like you said. So now multiply that amongst maybe some others. But even though, you’re one of the largest or the largest, like, yeah, , that’s a ton.
Or not a ton. That’s a lot. . You know how you’re blown away by the totals. , I was giving you, yeah that’s only 10 percent of what’s recycled in all of California monthly. That wow, that makes me that makes me feel really good though. You know, that this infrastructure exists and the reason I say this is because we always hear maybe some of bad in the news or in the media about like, what’s going on and .
Not about specifically recycling, but about what’s going on incorrectly or what we could be doing better to reduce our carbon footprint and other things like that. So it’s kind of fun to hear from the other side of the story, you know, all the hard work and the hundreds, if not thousands of people that are working daily to combat that problem.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, and it’s great. And it makes us feel good as working because we truly feel that passion that we’re, you know, helping reduce that carbon footprint. And it really makes all the employees we extra better when we’re doing the line of work
awesome. Well, Max, man, this has been a lot of fun having you on the show today and learning thank you for the master class on what’s going on with electron e waste and recycling and all the work you’re doing over at Cal Micro Recycling. So appreciate all of that and appreciate your work. That being said, if somebody wants to learn more about Cal Micro Recycling or to connect with your team, how do they do that?
Yeah, so you could visit us at CalMicroUSA. com or FullCircleElectronics. com. We’re based in Ontario, California, and that’s 1541 Brook Street, Ontario, California. And feel free to reach out and, Let’s see if we could do some business. Fantastic. And for everybody listening to this, just so you know, we’ll definitely put links to the website and all that good stuff in the show notes.
So you can just click on it and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well.
Well, so again, hit that subscribe or follow button and max, man, I’m looking forward to seeing you over at mega mix expo for everybody. If you didn’t get your tickets yet, and if you’re in the area, definitely uh, it’s mega mix expo. com. We’d love to see you out there. It’s going to be again on March 12th and 13th and Santa Anita park in Arcadia, California.
Again, mega mix expo. com and a max man. Appreciate you coming on. I appreciate your work. Thanks Adam, appreciate you having me on and we’ll see you at the mega mixer.