What To Do With Used Wearables: Now We All Can Recycle Health

Mazzetti is excited to be working with RecycleHealth, and I want to encourage everyone to join us in getting involved with them.

At Mazzetti, we are building a robust wellness program (something I want to talk more about in a future post), and we are a part of the overall health system of this country, and we are deeply rooted in practices that reduce cost, promote social justice and improve the environment. RecycleHealth is all of that.

A couple of years ago, to launch our Wellness program, we bought everyone in the company a Jawbone activity tracker. We chose Jawbone because of the social media applications associated with the tools, and the way we thought it would help us to launch our initial efforts into building a culture of health, even as we were building an organization to help the health industry. (Check out Melody’s Jawbone story here. )

So, and I guess this is a personal problem, I don’t seem to be very good at protecting these wrist-borne devices. A long time ago, I decided not to ever wear an expensive watch; I did not want to spend the money, especially because I tend to beat up most wearable accessories. And, so it proved true with my Jawbone. This is not supposed to be an advertisement, but I went through about 10 Jawbones before finally giving up (I am persistent). I kept a lot of the more recently broken ones (some were replaced by the Jawbone company after I broke them), but I did not know what to do with them. I don’t know why I kept them, but I did.

Anyway, last year, at a meeting, I stumbled on RecycleHealth. This organization takes both broken and working health trackers, refurbishes them, and provides them to people with limited resources, so they can access the benefits of these devices (apparently, most normal people are able to use them without breaking them!). So, we reached out, and now, we are instructing people at Mazzetti to provide to their respective office Wellness Champion to send to RecycleHealth.

Finally, we are talking with RecycleHealth about their third sphere of activity – collaborating on studies re the impacts of wearables on fitness and health – something near and dear to our hearts. More to come on this topic…

This is truly a wonderful relationship and opportunity for the health of our people, and the world. I encourage anyone who owns a wearable fitness tracker that they no longer use, to follow my lead, and I thank you for doing so.