When Jason Lim was 39, his wife offered him a proposal: Move the family to Canada and take two years to study whatever you like.
It was 1999, and Mr. Lim was an economist with a stable job in Seoul, South Korea. But for years his interest had been piqued by the environmental movement. As well, he dreamed of being his own boss.
“I didn't know yet what I wanted to do,” he said. “But one thing for sure I knew, I didn't want to spend my whole life in a company.”
Mr. Lim's wife, Yasmine, wanted to move to Canada to allow their then-11-year-old son to get an education in a less competitive atmosphere. But Mr. Lim was reluctant to make the bold move.
“My wife and I had a couple of months of tug-of-war, then finally she threw the bait – I'll give you two years, you won't have to make any money, you can do whatever you want to do.”
Enticed by the thought of transforming his career, Mr. Lim and his family left Seoul for Toronto in August of 1999. One month later, he was enrolled in the master's program in Environmental Applied Science and Management at Ryerson University. Through his studies, he learned about Ontario's Waste Diversion Act legislation of 2002, which mandated that various waste-producing industries reduce, reuse and recycle the waste produced by their industry. The “waste stream” that intrigued Mr. Lim the most was that of electronics, which at the time was mostly ending up in landfills.
“I thought, basically there's no market at the moment, no competition. This could be the beginning of an industry,” said Mr. Lim. “But I couldn't really formulate the idea beyond that.”
Workers dismantle electronics at Toronto Recycling Inc.
After completing his degree, Mr. Lim went looking for employment opportunities, and that led him to meet with officials at the Municipality of Waterloo. During an interview, one of them suggested he think about recycling electronics such as computers, monitors, televisions, audio-visual equipment, printers and photocopiers. It was the same idea he'd been mulling over at school. Mr. Lim thanked them, took his leave and spent the next five months doing intensive research.
Using his savings, his wife's savings and the savings of two employees, he founded Toronto Recycling Inc. Today the firm has 39 employees, about 700 clients in and around the Greater Toronto Area, and it just celebrated its seventh anniversary.
The operation, based in Richmond Hill, Ont., takes “e-waste” from its clients – such as universities, law firms, municipalities, media companies and manufacturing companies – and either refurbishes or recycles it. Items with a resale value are refurbished at the Richmond Hill warehouse (computers are always data-wiped) and then sold to retail companies to be re-marketed as used goods. Anything that is damaged or has no market value is broken down into individual materials (plastic, glass, aluminum, copper, etc.) and sold to recycling companies to be made into new items.
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Rebates are available to clients, with the net revenue from re-marketing or recycling of the IT waste split between the client and Toronto Recycling.
