Provided is a weekly snapshot of the recent ITAD, electronic recycling and mobile related news that HOBI’s blog reported during the week 2/25-3/01.

Choosing the right ITAD and ITAM vendor
As the IT industry has grown, so has the number of ITAD companies. And with so many options it can be easy to feel overwhelmed when picking a vendor. While there are plenty of ranked lists of ITAD companies, this method for picking a company can be pretty ineffective. Instead. Focus on your enterprise’s priorities and find a company tailored to you. HOBI is an R2, RIOS, ISO 14001 and WBE ITAM company with intelligent reverse logistics solutions. To help navigate the ITAD landscape, check out a few areas we listed as things to consider when choosing a vendor.
Lithium-ion battery recycling center designs new technology
The United States Department of Energy (DoE) has opened a battery recycling research and development center at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois. The goal of the R&D facility is to reclaim and recycle materials such as cobalt and lithium from spent Li-Ion batteries. The ReCell Center is leveraging national experts from academia and national laboratories to remove risks from Li-Ion recycling by developing state-of-the-art techniques that will make battery recycling cost effective.
Call for legally binding quality standards for electrical scrap recycling in the EU
The Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Forum is calling on the next European Commission to make quality standards for WEEE treatment legally binding. Earlier this month, policymakers, government experts and industry leaders met to discuss how binding WEEE recycling standards will help level the playing field across the EU for electronic scrap matters. This call to action towards the European Commission is based on the importance of quality standards and the need to avoid distorting recycling markets and hindering private investments in the field of recovery of (critical) raw materials.
DrainerBot could be the culprit behind your Android phone’s battery issues and high data bill
DrainerBot, is a sophisticated ad fraud operation that uses malicious code in mobile apps to deliver fraudulent, invisible video ads to Android devices. This fraudulent activity appears to be driven by code in an SDK (“Software Development Kit”) which has been installed in hundreds of different Android apps. Infected apps consume significant bandwidth and battery, with tests and public reports indicating an app can consume more than 10 GB/month of data or quickly drain a charged battery, even if the infected app is not in use or in sleep mode.