One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that’s certainly the case for Office Recycling Solutions. The family-owned company hauls away hundreds of tons of electronic waste annually and profits from, well, trash.
Workers at the company’s East Greenwich warehouse accept televisions, computers, printers, radios, monitors and dozens of other pieces of electronic equipment businesses and homeowners no longer want. Workers sort the equipment, pluck some of it for resale on eBay, take parts from some and ship the rest to recyclers and local scrap yards.
“It’s a never-ending cycle. This stuff is everywhere,” President Michael Mancuso said, standing amid dozens of pallets stacked with computers 12 high, boxes of circuit boards 3 feet deep and baskets of wires.
Mancuso started the business informally in 2005 as an outgrowth of his then-young Cartridge World franchise operation. As he went to homes and businesses to talk about ink cartridges and printing needs, Mancuso saw piles of old electronic equipment in basements or shoved in corners.
“I would ask them what they would do with the stuff, and they didn’t know,” Mancuso said.
Throwing it out with the trash was not encouraged, because electronic waste includes heavy metals, chemicals, lead and other materials harmful to the environment. At the time, many transfer stations refused to accept electronic waste and municipal trash services were ill-equipped to property handle the junk. So Mancuso started taking the stuff as an extension of his Cartridge World services.
At first his son Brent, then an intern at Cartridge World, jetted around the state in his silver Honda Civic picking up loads as small as one computer after fishing it out of dusty attics or crowded basements. He dropped off the equipment at a 600-square-foot facility in Cumberland. By 2007, Mancuso had spun off the electronic recycling into the independent Office Recycling Solutions and appointed Brent general manager.
Today, Brent has traded his Civic for a 26-foot box truck capable of holding 12 pallets. A contractor pulls up to the 3,000-square-foot warehouse with loads from transfer stations in 18 municipalities three or four times a day.
“It’s become a good little venture for us,” the elder Mancuso said.
More recently, the record-setting flooding in March sent waves of water-damaged equipment to the warehouse. Brent estimated the company was accepting double the normal volume of equipment in the weeks following the storm. And his father said the family knows it’s busy when workers are forced to stack pallets under the corporate basketball hoop.
Flooding aside, the stuff that pours in on a normal day is almost a barometer of the consumer electronics market. The Mancusos first saw a stream of bulky CRT computer monitors as people upgraded to flat screens. Then flat screens started arriving as their price came down and computer users switched to larger screens. Virtually new DVD players have started arriving as movie watchers upgrade to Blu-Ray systems.
There are the unusual items as well. Workers recently pulled aside a slot machine that someone dropped off at a transfer station. They have also found reel-to-reel tape decks popular in the 1950s and Heathkits, which were once-popular kits for assembling radios.
To sort it all, Office Recycling Solutions relies heavily on workers from programs serving those with cognitive disabilities or trying to regain their footing after serving time in the corrections system. The company works with people from the Cove, Groden and Trudeau centers and teaches them basic employment skills such as time management, how to write a resume and how to interact with a supervisor.
“I’ve been pretty fortunate in my life, so it’s good to give back,” Brent Mancuso said, explaining his decision to hire non-traditional employees.
He also has a lot of fun. Brent starts his day with an informal push-up competition with his staff, a competition repeated before lunch and at the end of the day. In good weather, he enjoys hauling the equipment around outside.
“I always said I didn’t want a cubicle job,” Mancuso said as a truck bulging with waste pulled up for unloading, and it was back to work. •
COMPANY PROFILE
OFFICE RECYCLING SOLUTIONS
OWNERS: Michael Mancuso, president; Sharon Mancuso, vice president; Brent Mancuso, general manager
TYPE OF BUSINESS: ecycler of electronic waste and other equipment
LOCATION: 5 Rocky Hollow Road, East Greenwich
EMPLOYEES: 12
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2007
ANNUAL SALES: WND
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