By STEVEN JUPITER
MIDDLEBURY—Tucked away in plain sight, in a nondescript green warehouse behind the Dollar Market on Route 7 in Middlebury, is Good Point Recycling (GPR), one of the country’s foremost electronics recycling programs. It’s a building people pass every day unaware of the important role it plays in processing electronics for recycling and reuse, helping the environment by keeping as much as possible out of the landfills.
The owner of GPR is Robin Ingenthron, who founded the company in 1999 and lives in Middlebury with his wife, Armelle Crouzières-Ingenthron, a professor of French at the college. But the Middlebury facility is managed day to day by a core group of Brandonites: Rachel Gosselin (Chief Financial Officer), Andrew Huntley (Executive Manager), Patrick Bilodeau (Logistics & Trucking Team Leader), and Dan Emerson (Sales & eCommerce Team Leader).
In anticipation of Earth Day on April 22, GPR invited The Reporter to its Middlebury facility to chat with the team and learn more about its award-winning operations.
First, there’s no sign to let you know you’ve arrived at the right place. It looks like any random suburban warehouse. But Patrick was in the office and quickly confirmed it was GPR. An unpretentious setting for serious work, the building houses storage, retail, and workshops, which Andrew, Patrick, and Dan were happy to show off. Rachel was unavailable for this visit.
Collectively, the three men have been with GPR for 32 years: Andrew with 10, Dan with 9, and Patrick with 13. Clearly, they enjoy their jobs.
Patrick’s focus is on logistics, making sure that everything gets to where it needs to go, whether that’s between GPR’s facilities within Middlebury (they also have a facility on Exchange Street), or to a more specialized processing plant, or to the final disposal of parts and pieces that just can’t be repaired, recycled, or reused. But every piece that finds a new home is a piece that doesn’t contribute to the continued degradation of the planet.
Dan oversees GPR’s sales operations. The company has a robust presence on eBay and maintains a retail shop at the front of the warehouse. His job is to sell what can be sold.
And Andrew oversees the entire facility, making sure everything runs smoothly. According to him, the company processes two million pounds of used electronics every year: computers, televisions, even vintage stereo equipment. Surprisingly, they say it’s the old stereo equipment that often fetches the highest prices online. Andrew points at what appears to be a 1970s-era stereo component (wood-grain plastic case and chromed sliders).
“We could probably get $1,000 for this, just for the parts,” he said.
“We’ll try to sell pretty much anything with value,” Dan added. “I put hundreds of items on eBay every week.”
“It’s good to see things come here and get repurposed or reused,” said Patrick.
“Reuse has a lot less impact on the environment,” Andrew added.
Though some of the material GPR handles comes from private individuals, most of it comes from businesses that are upgrading computer systems and other electronic equipment. These businesses pay GPR to come get their discarded electronics, especially when they want to be sure that the material is disposed of properly.
The guys laugh when asked if they’ve seen anything wild on any of the hard drives they’ve received. But the answer is no.
“We don’t have time to look,” said Dan. He did say, however, that GPR has on occasion received equipment that was discarded after police investigations. Still, though, he claims he’s never seen anything “scandalous.”
“We can provide a certificate of destruction,” said Andrew. “The government sometimes needs proof that discarded equipment has been destroyed.”
“We have guys whose goal in life is to destroy stuff,” laughed Dan.
GPR doesn’t handle hazardous materials, so Middlebury neighbors needn’t worry that the facility is releasing toxins.
“We’ve had stuff come in with radioactive stickers, but there was no actual radioactivity,” said Dan. And the extraction of any metals or compounds with value, such as gold, is done at an independent facility in New Hampshire.
In one of the storage rooms, box after box is filled with old television components, each wrapped and labeled according to the TV it came from. Thousands of circuit boards and backlights from thousands of TVs. These components are used for repairs. According to Dan, LED components from Samsung, Vizio, and LG are the best sellers, while components from plasma and LCD sets are the orphans of the television world.
“No one repairs plasma or LCDs anymore,” he said. In fact, the straw bulbs from LCDs are particularly tricky to handle because they contain mercury. Anyone with an LCD television they need to get rid of should take care not to break the bulbs behind the screen.
On the other side of the building is the computer workshop, where new arrivals are evaluated for reusability and resale. If the computer as a whole can be wiped clean and resold, they’ll put it in their retail space up front. A 2015 Apple desktop iMac with keyboard and wireless mouse was offered for $199.99, for example.
“We try to keep our prices competitive,” said Andrew. A table full of Dell laptops ranged between $150 and $200 each.
“All our used computers are fully functional and have at least 16 gigabytes of RAM,” said Dan.
Anyone looking for an affordable, quality used computer for their kids or even themselves would do well to stop in and check out their inventory.
GPR’s owner Robin Ingenthron jokes that his company is better known abroad than in its hometown. While he travels the world forging partnerships with other recyclers and spreading the word about GPR—he’ll be at a global recycling conference in Frankfurt, Germany in June—the daily management of his local operations is left in the hands of these four Brandonites.
So, as we approach Earth Day, let’s keep these four in mind and appreciate the work they do to keep our planet clean.
You can learn more about Good Point Recycling, its team, its accomplishments, and its programs at goodpointrecycling.net.
