CEWS BLOG | SUSTAINABILITY & IT ASSET DISPOSITION
Kansas Is Becoming a Data Center Powerhouse. CEWS’s Olathe Facility Is Built for What Comes Next.
As hyperscale and enterprise data centers rush into the Kansas City metro, they’re generating something the headlines rarely mention: mountains of retired servers, drives, and networking gear that demand secure, compliant, landfill-free disposition. CEWS is already in the neighborhood.
For years, Kansas sat on the sidelines of the digital infrastructure boom. That changed almost overnight. Kansas Senate Bill 98, the state’s data center sales tax exemption, now offers qualifying large-scale projects — those investing at least $250 million — a 20-year exemption from state and local sales and use tax. That single policy shift has helped turn the Kansas City metro into one of the country’s most active emerging data center markets, with planned projects representing well over a gigawatt of new capacity across the region.[1]
Much of that momentum is landing right in Johnson County. Olathe and its neighboring communities are seeing a wave of enterprise and hyperscale facilities come online, expand, and break ground. It’s a remarkable economic story, and it raises a question that the ribbon-cuttings tend to skip over: what happens to all the hardware?
The Quiet Challenge Behind Every Data Center
Despite what you may envision, data centers are not static. They run on relentless refresh cycles. Servers, hard drives, solid-state storage, switches, and racks are replaced on rolling schedules to keep performance high and energy costs in check. A single facility can decommission thousands of devices in a single quarter, and every one of those devices carries two liabilities at once: sensitive data that must be destroyed beyond recovery, and physical material that must be kept out of landfills.
For data center operators, IT teams, and the contractors who build and maintain these facilities, that creates an urgent need for a partner who can handle high volumes, guarantee chain-of-custody security, and document environmental compliance from intake to final material recovery. That partner needs to be close, capable, and credentialed.
Right Place, Right Scale: The CEWS Olathe Facility
CEWS operates a 132,000-square-foot facility at 16575 S Theden St, Suite 160 in Olathe — a cornerstone of the company’s national service network and, by geography alone, one of the best-positioned IT asset disposition (ITAD) and electronics recycling operations for the Kansas City data center corridor. While new data center campuses are being announced across Johnson County and the surrounding metro, CEWS is already operating, already certified, and already moving volume just minutes away.
The Olathe plant was purpose-built for secure, high-throughput work:
- 12 loading docks engineered for the truckload volumes that large-scale decommissioning projects generate.
- RFID card access control restricting facility access to authorized personnel only.
- A 17-camera surveillance system, including 10 fisheye lenses for comprehensive, blind-spot-free warehouse coverage.
- On-site mechanical data destruction, dismantling, and full-spectrum electronics recycling under one roof.
For a data center client, that combination matters. Sensitive media never has to leave a secured, monitored chain of custody, and the same facility that destroys the data also recovers and responsibly recycles the materials — no hand-offs, no gaps, no questions.
Compliance Customers Can Stand Behind
Enterprise IT and data center operators answer to auditors, regulators, and their own security teams. CEWS’s Olathe operation is certified to ISO 9001:2015 for quality management, ISO 14001:2015 for environmental management, and ISO 45001:2018 for occupational health and safety — the internationally recognized standards that give procurement and compliance teams the documentation they need to demonstrate responsible disposition. For organizations whose reputations depend on data security and sustainability commitments, that paper trail is as valuable as the service itself.
Built on Scale, Anchored in Sustainability
The Olathe facility is part of a national network exceeding 400,000 square feet of circular-economy operations, processing more than 200 truckloads of material every month. Last year alone, CEWS diverted 70 million pounds of electronic waste from landfills. The company maintains a strict Zero Landfill Policy: electronics are never sent to landfills or shipped overseas to be someone else’s problem. Instead, valuable materials are recovered and returned to productive use.
That scale is precisely why CEWS can absorb the demand a maturing data center market creates. As facilities expand and refresh their hardware, CEWS can flex capacity without compromising security or sustainability standards.
“The data center growth across Kansas is a tremendous opportunity for the region — and it comes with a responsibility. Every server eventually retires, and how that hardware is handled says everything about an organization’s commitment to security and sustainability. Our Olathe facility was built to be the trusted partner for exactly this moment.”
— Eric Chu, Founder & CEO, Corporate eWaste Solutions
A Local Partner with a Bigger Mission
CEWS’s impact in Olathe extends beyond the loading dock. Through its Tech for Good initiative, the company refurbishes laptops and places them with qualified individuals and families in local communities, supporting youth education and adult job-training opportunities. As the data center economy reshapes Johnson County, CEWS is committed to making sure the technology it recovers continues to create value close to home.
Let’s Talk About Your Decommissioning Needs
If your organization is building, operating, or refreshing data center infrastructure in the Kansas City metro, CEWS’s Olathe facility offers the security, scale, and certified compliance to handle your retired hardware responsibly — from the first decommissioned server to the final recovered ounce of material.
Reach the CEWS team at (888) 388-2397 or visit cews.com to start the conversation.
[1]Kansas Senate Bill 98 (2025), amending K.S.A. 79-3606; signed into law by Governor Laura Kelly on April 24, 2025, effective July 1, 2025. Sources: Kansas Department of Commerce, SB 98 Data Center Sales Tax Exemption Program (kansascommerce.gov); Kansas Legislature bill record, SB 98 (kslegislature.gov).
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