AI Lost-and-Found Tech Partners with Sustainability Company to Create End-to-End Solution for Hotels
BOUNTE, Inc., a provider of lost-and-found technology, said it is working with Green Flag Recycling to safely dispose of electronics and other valuable items left behind and unclaimed at hospitality venues, universities and hospital settings. Green Flag Recycling is an industry leader in certified secure lost-and-found liquidation.
The BOUNTE cloud-based mobile app transforms a venue’s inefficient manual lost and found into a high-tech management system for hotels, airports, airlines, casinos and other organizations. The app’s artificial intelligence identifies and logs the item and tracks its location from a photo taken with a smartphone. BOUNTE’s automated return system simplifies shipping to quickly reunite the item with its owner. BOUNTE facilitates a higher return rate for items left behind than other lost-and-found approaches.
With Green Flag Recycling, BOUNTE offers a seamless way for organizations to dispose of and create a revenue stream from electronics, jewelry, watches and other items not claimed by their owners, often after just 30 days.
Green Flag Recycling pays for electronics such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, iPads, jewelry and other items that hold value. These earnings can offset operational costs associated with lost-and-found management. In addition, the program and associated metrics reporting can be included in a company’s environmental stewardship initiatives. Green Flag Recycling has a zero-landfill policy for cell phones. The company securely erases all data from smartphones and other electronic devices, removes and destroys SIM cards, and then sells the devices, usually for parts.
“BOUNTE can automate and streamline the logging, returning, shipping and disposition of lost and found items and directly send pickup requests to Green Flag Recycling from within the system,” said Stephen Sinclair, founder and CEO of BOUNTE.“ A large hotel can find a dozen or more phones or other electronics left behind each month,” he said.
“It’s important to liquidate lost items,” said Joann Winner, founder and president of Green Flag Recycling. “Handheld electronics have highly sensitive personal information such as bank accounts, credit cards and health records along with texts, emails, photos and videos. If electronic devices are auctioned or donated without being wiped, the use of that information can be detrimental to a business or individual or run afoul of the many laws in more than 30 states regulating disposal of digital and paper data,” she said.
BOUNTE has an automated disposition function for unclaimed items that sends a disposition request to Green Flag when the item is ready for liquidation. Once Green Flag Recycling sends the prepaid postage and subsequently receives the items, they are properly managed and sold. The proceeds are then sent to the hotel as an additional source of revenue.