One Burke County business is recommending people wipe old electronics before throwing anything away.
A survey found that 22% of North Carolinians do not wipe their data before submitting e-waste for recycling. That is according to a survey conducted by HostingAdvice, which specializes in web hosting advice, technology news, product reviews and how-to guides, according to its website. HostingAdvice surveyed 3,000 people.
The study found that more than one in five people wrongly assume that the recycling center will wipe the device for them.
Wiping personal information, from financial, passwords or medical information to photos and videos is fairly easy to do, said Ronnie Harmon, an owner of Burke Onsite Computer Solutions in Valdese.
“What we do is we take the drives out of them and smash them with a sledgehammer. We’ve been doing that for years,” Harmon said. “There’s actually a little video on our website that shows us, what we do with them. But, yeah, the best thing to do would just be to take the hard drives out and destroy them. Whether they need help with that, or they want to do it themselves. We have shot them with shotguns. We slam them with sledgehammers. We’ve done all kind of things to destroy them just for fun. But yeah, the best thing to do is just take a hammer to them.”
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He said the business destroys about 30 to 40 hard drives at a time.
Harmon said the business has worked with a recycler for about 20 years who picks up old computers and smashed hard drives.
“They recycle the precious metals out of them,” Harmon said.
Burke Onsite offers the service for free unless a customer shows up with a large number of hard drives, Harmon said.
Harmon said his company is HIPAA compliant and works with a lot of medical law firms.
“We’ve been in business for a very long time, so it’s like a trust thing,” Harmon said. “And, of course, they can take the hard drives out themselves and smash them before they bring them to us, the old computers. We can also provide a document saying that that data has been destroyed. That is a HIPAA requirement for medical, you have to provide a statement saying you’ve destroyed that data.”
Those who destroy their own hard drives can either bring it to a business like Burke Onsite that has a recycler or take it to the scrap yard to recycle it.
The Burke County landfill also accepts electronics for recycling.
Harmon said there is software that will wipe personal information from a system before it is recycled.
“I would advise destroying the drives out of (gaming systems) before you give them to somebody else, or donate them to somebody or throw them away,” Harmon said. “They will have personal data information on them like credit card information, user account information and stuff like that. I would advise to make sure those things are factory reset or those drives are destroyed before releasing them or throwing them away.”
Before destroying a hard drive or resetting a computer or gaming system, though, remember to remove anything you want to keep, he said. Once it is destroyed or reset, the data will become unrecoverable, he said.
Wiping data and personal information from a cell phone is much easier. Harmon said phones are easier to do a factory reset that will wipe the information.
Harmon said if the device has a memory card installed, people should erase or remove any data from the device before getting rid of it.
To see the study from HostingAdvice, visit /
