Waste2Watts, based in Atlant, GA, is a for-profit social entreprise with a mission to address energy poverty in the developing world by creating innovative products from repurposed electronic waste.

W2W's flagship product is the ENZI interface, a low-cost Uninterruptible Power Supply, manufactured using a recycled computer power supply or power cord coupled with a recycled car battery.

The ENZI interface responds to two issues:

1. Power outages in developing countries.  Power outages are a daily fact of life for 100s of millions of people.  Power outages are obviously annoying - but beyond annoying, they become especially critical in situations like hospital operations.  The ENZI is a cheap and simple solution to provide hours of backup power during an unexpected power outage.

2. Proliferation of e-waste.  Every year, 400 million units of electronic waste are discarded, representing only 2% of landfill waste by mass, but up to 70% of the hazardous heavy metals.  The ENZI is a great solution for not only redirecting electronic waste from landfills, but building something new out of that dangerous but valuable waste - kind of like Free Geek's solution for e-waste.

W2W plans to launch operations in India in 2012 and establish a local and sustainable solution through the development of micro-franchise product factories.

W2W has a ways to go before scaling up the ENZI and creating an efficient way of collecting e-waste ... but I'm already wondering what other products they have up their sleeves beyond the ENZI.

Basically, I get really excited about both recycling and energy - but there's nothing I love more than combining the two.  Waste2Watts.  Right on.

Here's a comprehensive video explaining the history, product, and business model of the ENZI project.