Steinhausen, 22.10.2019

Local company instrumental in raising funds for victims of mines

A local company, Recommerce AG of Steinhausen, has been instrumental and continues to be so in raising funds for people injured by mines.

For over a year now the Recommerce company has been donating money received from the sale of re-conditioned items such as smart phones, old mobile phones and laptops passed on to them after having been collected by Rotary Clubs across Switzerland. The funds generated by the re-sale of these old electrical items are then passed on to the Mine-ex Foundation which supports rehabilitation centres for the victims of mines in countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia, the Mine-ex Foundation itself set up by the Rotary Club of Burgdorf in the canton of Bern some 25 years ago.

The idea behind this project came from Zug doctor Beat Wicky, who is himself a member of the board of the Mine-ex Foundation. In addition to the old electrical items collected by Rotary Clubs, people can send them direct to the company, at number 22 Hinterbergstrasse, where they are duly repaired and sold on.

As Natasha Wyss, the COO of Recommerce, explained, on arrival, all the items are connected to a deleting station, so there is no risk of any personal data being passed on. Then, before re-sale, they are rigorously tested. Those items which are not suitable for resale are dismantled with re-usable parts duly recycled. Those items which cannot be used at all are destroyed. What is important is that people who send in their old equipment must have them returned to factory settings and any Apple IDs deleted. If this is not done, only parts of the items can be re-used. Recommerce AG then sells the items on, with between CHF 80 to CHF100 per old smartphone or tablet sent on to the Mine-ex Foundation. For every old mobile phone, the charity gets CHF 2.00.

“We hope that, with the funding we send on to Mine-ex, victims will be able to return to the world of work,” said Wicky who added that funding also supports five Cambodian students working in the area of orthopaedic technology. “We feel this project fits in very well with recycling and aid projects so very topical at this time,” said the doctor.

Out of interest, 78 of 210 Rotary clubs have sent in no fewer than 4,200 items to the company and so far no problems relating to data privacy had occurred. It was also reported how the project was ongoing and that the foundation’s official partner was the International Committee of the Red Cross, who ensured the raised funds were passed on to the mine victims.

Further information can be found on www.minex.ch and www.recommerce.ch.