A walkthrough of what actually happens to a laptop after it's handed over for recycling, from pickup to material recovery.
The process starts with pickup — either doorstep collection or drop-off — where the laptop is logged and weighed, giving you a documented record of the transaction.
Since a laptop has a drive, data destruction happens before anything else — either certified wiping or physical destruction of the drive, so no readable data leaves with the hardware.
If the laptop still works, it may be set aside for refurbishment rather than recycling — repaired and redeployed rather than dismantled. This decision happens early, since it changes everything downstream.
If it's going to recycling, the laptop is dismantled into its component materials — metals, plastics, the battery, the screen — with each routed to the appropriate recovery or disposal channel through certified partners.
Once processing is complete, a Green Certificate or Destruction Certificate documents that the device was handled through this process, which is what you'd keep for your own records.
