It's been established that e-waste recycling presents several dilemmas for businesses. The biggest question is probably this: Do we do the socially, environmentally responsible thing (even though it may not be required) and make sure that our recycler is not exporting e-waste? Or do we not worry about it and save a little money? Obviously, most recyclers hope recycling customers would choose the former.

But how do they convince would-be customers to take advantage of their services when companies everywhere are tightening belts? After all, Kate Sinding, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council says, "The best thing that can happen is that we get new federal legislation that restricts exports of e-waste out of this country." However, such a restriction is not yet in place.

Matt Decareau is the business development director at Massachusetts-based M&K Recovery Group, which processes everything from cell phones and CRT monitors to precious metals. He says the imminent transition to digital television provides the government with a perfect opportunity to crack down on e-waste recycling nationally. But he's not holding his breath at this point. "Unfortunately," Decareau says, "I believe the state of the economy might interfere with making that a priority."

Research released by IBISWorld earlier this year lends credence to Decareau's concerns -- at least in terms of the economy. Senior analyst George Van Horn says recycling is "the thirteenth biggest revenue loser in 2009, and is expected to plummet a drastic 20 percent.” And the fact that recycling typically costs companies money at first rather than saving it doesn't exactly help the cause.

Robert Houghton, president of Ohio-based technology change-management company Redemtech says "proper recycling costs a company like Redemtech a few cents per pound net of materials recovery values." Costs to customers vary, according to M&K's Decareau. But generally, he says, "Commercial customers can expect to pay from about $2.50 for smaller pieces such as phones and printers up to $15 for larger CRT monitors (which have a more complicated demanufacturing process), which includes local pickup, certificate of recycling and hard drive destruction serialization."

That said, though, recyclers don't give up. They just take a different approach when making their sales pitches. Decareau explains, "The price of bad PR and incurred [EPA] fines outweighs the small price of properly disposing of their e-waste."  Then there's the added security benefit of recycling. "Electronics are broken down under secure conditions into pieces small enough to ensure sensitive data can never be recovered," he says. The same is not true if equipment is exported outside the U.S. or illegally dumped in a landfill here.

As Houghton puts it, "Companies that adopt a policy of responsible recycling are choosing to incur a small incremental expense that is a component of responsible electronics ownership."