By Gemma Simpson, 15 October 2007 09:30
NEWS
Recycling IT equipment is "stupid" and should not be the top concern within a company's eco-agenda, according to an environmental expert.
Instead, companies should focus on finding kit that can be reused, with accessible parts that can be replaced easily, rather than recycled, according to a representative of the UK government's Envirowise project - which hands out free advice to businesses on green issues.
Simon Dury, business partnerships director of the Envirowise Project, said: "Recycling is stupid. It should be the second to last thing which we do before throwing away something."
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Speaking at a Green Computing in Practice roundtable, Dury added companies should instead reuse or donate obsolete IT equipment to developing countries - "if we can find a robust way to make sure it goes to the place we think it is going to go".
With the long-awaited Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive coming into play this year to encourage companies to recycle and reuse their old IT equipment – some companies are sending their PCs to developing countries in a bid to be green and bridge the digital divide.
But companies eager to send their old kit abroad have a duty to ensure these countries can get benefits from the technology and are not just being lumbered with defunct technology, said the roundtable panel.
Labour MP Alan Whitehead said: "If you have a whole pile of technology which is taking up a great deal of resource and is going to be difficult to service, you are just offsetting your problem to other places in the world."
The technology itself also needs to be in full working order, said the panel.
Also speaking at the roundtable, David Angwin, European marketing manager at thin client computing company Wyse Technology, said: "It does not sound like the right approach to ship out kit which is not working properly to places where it may not even be needed and there is no IT support team anyway."
Envirowise's Dury added those building the IT products must consider the environmental impacts from the start with 80 per cent of the environmental impact of a product linked in at the design stage and 63 per cent of materials used to make the device not making it to the final product.
Comments
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1. Dmitriy Nikolayev
Ms. Simpson oversimplifies the issue. Of course buying IT equipment that is designed to work longer is superior to recycling equipment that becomes obsolete quickly. But all equipment eventually goes beyond repair or upgrade, and then recycling – extracting useful materials to be used in making new products – is the only sensible option.
Also, what does Ms. Simpson suggest we do with the hardware we are using now? That equipment was definitely designed for obsolescence and contains things like mercury and other toxins (which the RoHS Directive eliminated only recently). Once again, recycling – which involves the removal and separation of toxic chemicals – is the only sensible option.
All green IT experts, including even Simon Dury, will agree that there is a place for recycling in the hierarchy of options for managing electronic equipment.
2. Helen B
I agree that, as the second part of the mantra 'reduce, reuse, recycle', older IT equipment should be sent for the benefit of developing regions. But once the equipment is no longer working or fit for purpose in that country, we need to make sure that there are systems in place to recycle/dispose of it responsibly at that stage. Many developing nations will not have the same processes that the UK has, for example, and it may still end up going to landfill. Manufacturers must not be allowed to wash their hands of the equipment if it is essentially out of sight, out of mind.