Old computers increasingly find new life

In an industrial office complex outside of Boston, used computers, servers, monitors and printers are put to rest. Some will become technology organ donors, their parts removed for use in machines that are deemed salvageable. Components and parts might wind up being shipped to recycling centers in Tennessee or California, where their bits of gold, silver and copper will be removed and their steel sold for use as construction materials.

The Technology Renewal Center in Andover, Mass. is operated by Hewlett-Packard Financial Services (HP), and is where damaged and outdated equipment that had been leased to customers is sent for repair, rehabilitation or recycling in a process replicated by vendors throughout the IT industry, which has increasingly turned attention to environmental concerns.

The financial services arm of HP encourages customers to lease computer equipment, and as part of those contracts the company is responsible for recycling hardware, as well as for scrubbing personal data from machines to meet U.S. regulations related to protection of private information. Other major IT vendors such as IBM Corp., Dell Inc., Toshiba Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. — to name but a few — have similar initiatives.

Governments, including the European Union, have established regulations regarding the disposal of hazardous materials as well as laws related to recycling of computer hardware. Meanwhile, environmental groups also continue to push companies to assume responsibility for safely disposing of equipment that contains toxins such as lead, mercury and cadmium.

“Those types of laws, particularly related to the handling of hazardous materials, are, I think, probably the most important drivers,” spurring companies to initiate hardware recycling and refurbishment programs, said Roger Kay president of analysis firm Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc. in Massachusetts. “It’s the fear of litigation that drives companies to do the right thing here. They’re not all touchy-feely environmentalists.”

There is no U.S. federal legislation regulating hardware disposal or recycling, although invididual states have such laws, and the U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency has a number of initiatives related to safe disposal, recycling and so-called “green” design. The latter reflects a growing movement aimed at redesigning computer equipment so that it is made with minimal potentially toxic elements.

Hardware recycling efforts overall have begun to bear fruit — Carnegie Mellon University’s Green Design Initiative predicts that almost 150 million computers will be recycled this year, which had been the number predicted to wind up in landfills. Instead, about 55 million will end up in the trash, with that number expected to continue to decline as consumer awareness becomes heightened.

No matter the motivation that pushes companies to recycle or reuse hardware “it’s great for customers,” said Anne MacFarland, director of infrastructure architectures and solutions at The Clipper Group Inc. consulting firm. Such programs enable users to obtain affordable hardware. School districts often lease or purchase used equipment, as do many small businesses whose owners can’t afford newer technology or whose IT needs are fulfilled without new gear.

But it’s particularly beneficial, MacFarland said, when companies assume liability for their customers when it comes to equipment disposal, making it more likely than not that regulations will be followed.

“You don’t want these things to be a charity because then they go away,” MacFarland said, adding that IT recycling and related programs are more likely to succeed and be sustained if they are part of an overall company business plan aimed at generating revenue.

The overall push by vendors to establish hardware recycling, rehabilitation and reuse initiatives — some of which have been around for a decade or longer — is a continuing positive shift at a time when computer equipment lifecycles have become shorter, by some estimates dropping to about two years. But even those computers that are destined for the rubbish heap have some value for their parts.

“Nothing is really wasted when it comes through this process,” Jim O’Grady, director of the HP renewal center said last week during a tour of the facility, where pallets of incoming hardware were stacked with monitors and old laptops, some of which had been severely ill-treated by users. On one pallet, at least 12 monitors were bound together with kitchen-grade plastic wrap rather than the industrial strength version that should have been used. The monitors on the bottom of the stack were facedown with other monitors heaped on top of them.

O’Grady and Jim Shea, who manages the center, are accustomed to seeing such jaw-dropping displays of carelessness, so it comes as no surprise to them when computers are sent to the facility containing “company proprietary information, personal information,” O’Grady said. Cell phones, passports and even credit cards have turned up in laptop bags. All personal information is scrubbed from computers to comply with data protection legislation, while cell phones and passports are returned to their rightful owners.

Even the most “challenged” hardware might find new life and be refurbished and leased to customers, who sometimes want to replace equipment going back as far as almost 20 years. Some of them are wedded to, for instance, old Digital Equipment servers and software. It could be the customer can’t afford to upgrade an entire data center or it could simply be that the IT department really likes the older gear. The HP Technology Renewal Center is, in fact, housed in what was Digital’s global spare parts facility, which was acquired by Compaq, then later bought by HP.

Increasingly, the HP center receives requests from companies or government agencies that have lost equipment in a disaster. The center was able to provide replacement equipment for financial services and related companies after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks destroyed some facilities in New York, O’Grady said. The center also was able to quickly send hardware to Federal Emergency Management Agency offices set up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina after it struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August. Late last week, O’Grady was anticipating similar requests after Hurricane Rita hit Texas and Louisiana.

Although the center wasn’t established as a place customers could turn to when they needed quick replacements after disasters, it has taken on that role and now prepares equipment in advance for quick shipping after hurricanes when those are headed toward U.S. shores. The market for recovery of technology after a disaster is “very competitive,” O’Grady said, but HP seems to treat it as much as a service as a business opportunity.

“We’re not doing this for US$6 a gallon. No gouging,” he said, referring to the spikes in prices per gallon of gasoline in the U.S. after the recent hurricanes hit the refinery-rich areas of the Gulf Coast. “We want to give back to the community. We wouldn’t take advantage of a situation like that.”

While HP takes the high road and tries to rehabilitate as much equipment as it can, there is a “fairly seamy underside” of hardware recycling and disposal, analyst Kay said. “In the end, when you can’t decide what to do with your pile of waste, through your brokers you can have it put on a boat that’s going to take it to China. You lose track of it and your hands are clean.”

Disposal of potentially hazardous waste in China, Africa and other developing areas outside of the U.S. is an issue still to be reckoned with, as is the manufacture of goods made from toxic materials in countries that lack protections for workers, Kay said.

Large hardware vendors that have an international presence — Kay specifically mentioned Dell and IBM as leaders in this regard — “are more likely to have an enlightened policy” and to have in place safeguards that keep their used equipment from falling into the hands of nefarious brokers.

Such programs will undoubtedly continue to increase both in terms of the number of companies that implement them, as well as in their scope, encompassing smaller electronics goods as well as larger products. Meanwhile, Kay isn’t inclined to place the onus on hardware vendors because he believes that users also have to take responsibility for environmental issues related to the technology they use. “For me, it’s very easy to say who is responsible — everybody is responsible … every consumer, every producer.”