Contact AK Recycling

AK Recycling operates Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. We are closed on weekends and major holidays. We recommend calling ahead if you plan to drop off a large quantity of items or need to schedule a specific appointment time, as this helps us ensure we have the staff available to efficiently process your electronics and provide any required documentation.

For businesses with unique scheduling needs, we can often accommodate requests for early morning drop-offs or special appointments outside our normal hours. Large-scale pickup projects for businesses can also be scheduled to minimize disruption to your operations, including early morning or multi-day service arrangements.

If you need to contact us outside of business hours, you can reach us via email at rich@ak-recycling.com. We typically respond to email inquiries within one business day. For urgent matters, please call during business hours at 323.581.5700 for the fastest response.

We understand that schedules can be tight, and we do our best to make the recycling process as efficient as possible. Most residential drop-offs take only a few minutes. Business pickups are scheduled with specific arrival windows so you can plan around our arrival.

For standard business pickup requests in the Los Angeles area, we typically can schedule service within one to two weeks of initial contact. For smaller projects or when our schedule allows, we can sometimes arrange pickups within just a few days. We recommend contacting us as early as possible to secure your preferred service date, especially for larger projects.

For urgent projects—such as office moves, data center decommissioning with tight timelines, or equipment that must be removed quickly—please call us directly at 323.581.5700 to discuss expedited options. We work hard to accommodate time-sensitive needs when our schedule and resources allow.

When you contact us about a pickup, we'll need some basic information to provide an accurate quote and schedule: the approximate quantity and types of equipment, your location, any special handling requirements, and whether data destruction documentation is needed. With this information, we can give you a realistic timeline and cost estimate.

After the initial contact and agreement, we'll confirm your pickup appointment with a specific date and arrival window. We'll also send you any required paperwork in advance so that everything is ready to go on the day of service.

Preparing your electronics for drop-off or pickup is relatively simple. You don't need to factory reset devices or perform any special preparation—our data destruction process will handle complete and certified data elimination. However, if you have any personal items like USB drives, CDs, or printed documents associated with your devices, please remove those yourself as we only recycle the electronic equipment.

For drop-off, simply load the items into your vehicle and bring them to our facility at 2105 E. 25th Street in Los Angeles. Our staff will help you unload, especially for heavy or bulky items. If you have a large quantity, it can be helpful to call ahead so we can ensure staffing is adequate to assist you efficiently.

For pickup service, please have the equipment gathered in one location or as few locations as possible to make the loading process efficient. If items are in locked rooms or require elevator access, please ensure access is arranged for our arrival. Having a contact person available during the pickup who can authorize the collection and sign paperwork is important, particularly for business customers who need documentation.

If you're unsure whether specific items qualify for recycling or whether they might be eligible for reuse or donation, feel free to ask our staff. We're happy to assess items and make recommendations on the best path forward for each type of equipment.

No, you do not need to remove personal data from your devices before bringing them to AK Recycling. Our certified data destruction process is designed to completely and verifiably eliminate all data from every device we process, regardless of whether you've attempted to delete it yourself. In fact, attempting to erase data yourself before recycling is often unnecessary and occasionally counterproductive if done incorrectly.

For businesses with specific compliance requirements, our certified data destruction process is more thorough and documented than most self-deletion methods. We provide a Certificate of Data Destruction that meets the requirements of HIPAA, SOX, GDPR, and other regulatory frameworks—something a simple factory reset or self-deletion cannot provide.

That said, if you feel more comfortable doing a factory reset before bringing in your device, that's completely fine. Just know that our process will provide an additional layer of certified destruction regardless. For devices containing particularly sensitive information, our physical shredding option provides absolute assurance that no data recovery is possible.

For mobile devices, you may want to delink your accounts (Apple ID, Google account, etc.) before recycling, as this prevents the device from being associated with your account if it's ever powered on. This is more of a practical consideration than a security issue, since our data destruction process will eliminate all data regardless.

AK Recycling offers free drop-off recycling for most common electronics including computers, laptops, tablets, phones, printers, monitors, and many other items. California's e-waste fee program, which is paid at point of sale when electronics are purchased, helps fund recycling of these covered devices.

Some items carry processing fees, most notably older CRT televisions and monitors. These devices contain significant amounts of lead and other hazardous materials that require specialized processing, and the cost to safely handle them exceeds the value of recovered materials. Our staff will inform you of any fees before processing your items.

For business pickup services, fees depend on the volume and types of equipment, the distance from our facility, the documentation required, and whether data destruction services are needed. In many cases, businesses with significant volumes of recyclable equipment may qualify for free pickup, as the recovered material value can offset or cover the service cost. We'll provide a detailed quote before any service is performed.

We are committed to transparency about any fees. If you have questions about whether specific items are free to recycle or carry fees, please don't hesitate to call us at 323.581.5700 before making the trip. We'd rather you have accurate information upfront than be surprised at drop-off.