Origin Story

    Milan Darji, our founder, was a 9th grader on his high school robotics team, poised to throw yet another burned out encoder into the trash when he paused. The encoder, a type of printed circuit board with computer chips and electronics components, couldn't be good for the environment if it got incinerated, he thought.

    Milan had already volunteered at Free Geek for several years, helping disasemble unwanted household and corporate electronics into their constituent parts so useful components could be recovered while harmful ones were responsibly handled.

    Digging into the issue of electronic waste, or e-waste, Milan was shocked to learn about the proliferation of e-waste, how e-waste was illicitly exported from developed countries and smuggled into develpoing countries where they were dumped, leaching lead, cadmium, and other toxic substances into the local environment. The amount of e-waste generated each year is accelerating, while less than 1/4 of it is recycled, resulting in a global, ticking ecological time bomb.

    This revelation caused Milan to found RoboCyclers in 2023 to be part of the solution.