Matthew Young, president of Electronics Value Recovery, has deep roots in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC.
Matthew Young, president of Electronics Value Recovery, has deep roots in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC.
Young entered the e-scrap industry during his time at the University of Maryland, where he worked for the state’s largest electronics recycler during his junior and senior years. After witnessing the challenges of device recovery, he moved west, spent a decade in California, then returned to Maryland to launch Electronics Value Recovery in 2016.
His interest in electronics began early. At age eight, he attended a computer camp that sparked a lifelong passion for technology. “My parents say it was some of the best money they ever spent because I was building my own computers at that point,” Young recalled.
In this interview with E-Scrap News, Young discusses device longevity, his favorite movies and his plans for the 2025 E-Scrap Conference.
When did you first see an issue with electronic disposal?
I think it was when I interviewed for that electronics recycler. The opportunity for reuse really opened my eyes. I was there to help them develop a software program and they took me on a tour of this big facility with a giant shredder. I saw all these computers and devices that weren’t that old and they were about to shred them for pennies a pound. That’s really what my career is today, maximizing the value of reuse from used electronics.
How long do you personally think that a phone or a laptop should last?
A lot depends on whether it works with today’s standards; networks in the case of cell phones, operating systems in the case of laptops and desktops. We’ve just seen the Windows 10 sunsetting, which is going to take a lot of equipment out because those devices can’t run Windows 11. Those factors really dictate the market. You tend to see about eight years as a rule of thumb for the oldest stuff that’s going to be refurbished in most cases, but there are exceptions.
What is your favorite electronics-themed movie?
It would probably have to be the classic “WarGames,” where it was the 1980s and the guy using his dial-up modem accidentally hacked into a military system and almost triggered World War III.
What are some movies that really made an impact on people’s perception of electronics and how they’re used?
I think of something like “Jurassic Park,” where you see the crazy, catastrophic, unforeseen consequences of something like genetic engineering technology and you now have dinosaurs eating people. I think that’s probably one of the best tech thriller movies. Or “Independence Day,” where they gave the aliens a computer virus and saved the world. That was pretty great, too.
What are you listening to in the car?
My wife kind of makes fun of me. I listen to a lot of NPR in the car, things like that, podcasts, things of that nature. And so, when I’m in her car and we’re listening to the hot music of the day, I’ll be like, “Wow, this is such a great song.” And she’s like, “This came out two years ago.” So, I’m really not the one on today’s hits. It would have to be mid-2000s music for me to speak authoritatively.
What’s the last book you read?
It’s called “Sub Tales Three.” It’s by these guys that basically wrote about people in the US submarine forces and it’s a pretty wild cast of characters if you put 125 guys in a tube for six months. So it’s pretty cool stuff.
What are some of your favorite books?
This classic book that Tom Clancy wrote in the 1980s called “Red Storm Rising” kind of imagined what World War III would have looked like. I probably read that 20 times. And now there are all these modern incarnations, US versus China or Russia or some other geopolitical strategic actor. I really enjoy the thought exercises and the strategy and stuff like that in different grand-scale novels like that.
What’s your favorite book-to-movie adaptation?
It’s gotta be “Fight Club.”
Can you tell us about your session at the E-Scrap Conference this year?
Our session is going to be about some of the different challenges in reusing and refurbishing devices. It’s an ever-changing market – product stream, the types of technology we’re dealing with – having things like locks that we weren’t even dealing with or looking at five years ago. And so, really trying to get a handle on what’s the best way forward with some of the real-world challenges that refurbishers, OEMs and people trying to repair these devices are facing, and so I think it should be a really valuable session.
Are you planning anything fun while you’re at the conference?
I’m going to be pretty busy from when I get in to when I get out, but I’m looking forward to seeing lots of old friends, colleagues, partners, customers and downstream vendors. You know, I’ve been coming to these shows since, I think, 2009, only missed a few there.
