Renewable Revolution

Michael Dadashi


A former heroin addict started this awesome e-waste company that hires others in recovery

By Holly Richmond

Most ex-heroin addicts don’t start multimillion-dollar companies, but Michael Dadashi did — and now almost 70 percent of his employees are former alcoholics and drug addicts too. Dadashi’s company is MHD Enterprises, which recycles electronic waste.

MHD recycles, repairs, and resells businesses’ old tech products and items customers have returned. Dadashi actually started the company to support his heroin habit, according to Fast Company, which had plagued him since age 18. (He’d learned about e-waste recycling at a short-lived previous job.)

After trying rehab, he OD’d while he was driving in 2009 and finally got clean. By 2012, MHD was the 28th fastest-growing company in America. With his recovery and business both on track, Dadashi combined the two, hiring people from the detox center where he served as a sponsor.    As he told Fast Co.:

“We’re giving computers and electronics a second chance,
but what talks to my heart is giving people a second chance.”

AWW. Do you have a tissue? I’m fine; it’s just my allergies. 
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