IT sector of any industry needs multiple electronic and electrical devices. IT equipment is an essential part of modern life, and in the UK alone, each person buys at least three new electrical items every year. However, what is alarming is that for every three new IT products that someone buys, they throw away four of their old IT products. This means people are avoiding recycling IT. According to one research, every year, the total number of new IT products purchased is around 206,000, but people are not recycling IT for the same number of products. These numbers are pretty frightening because if people and companies are not disposing of their IT products, they are discarding them and increasing the carbon footprints in nature.
Apart from this, there is another factor to consider. When an IT product reaches the end of its life cycle, it can still store sensitive data. While the product or the device was being used during its lifecycle, you might have taken every step to protect the data, such as installing virus protection, firewalls, and followed the data security protocols of your company. However, what happens to those data when you suddenly discard your IT products?
Business should always recycle their IT equipment in line with the WEEE directive and Waste Framework Directive. WEEE Directives, set in January 2005, encourages companies to reduce EEE waste by recovering, recycling, and reusing IT products rather than disposing of them. Furthermore, every sensitive data should be destroyed securely before recycling. Accordingly, the Waste Framework Directive, otherwise termed as WFD, was introduced in November 2008 to convert the EU into a recycling society so that everyone can minimise IT products wastage.
If you look after the recycling of IT for your business, the hard drive of the same product can be reused. This means that the hard drive of that IT product will be wiped off rather than destroying the product physically. By recycling all IT products, such as hard drives, etc., you will lower the demand for new IT devices and helps the environment stay safe and protected.
Why Recycling IT is so important?
- Businesses, in particular, deal with a lot of IT devices and products. Each product contains toxic substances, such as chromium, polyvinyl chloride, beryllium, cadmium, mercury, and lead. These chemicals are incredibly harmful to nature, and once they reach the soil, they start polluting both the water, killing thousands of sea creatures. Additionally, they pollute the air as well.
- E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams worldwide. It is estimated that by the end of 2021, this planet will generate approximately 50 million tonnes of IT disposal waste, which means computer equipment waste. Electronic products, such as computer equipment, contain raw materials, which, when recycled, can save a lot of energy. Another plus point is that when you do IT recycling, the requirement for such raw materials will gradually decrease. Additionally, IT products contain many recyclable materials, which one should leverage, such as glass, metals, and plastics. It’s always better to do IT recycling rather than making them from scratch.
- The more you focus on IT recycling, the lesser burden you will put on the earth’s natural resources. By limiting IT waste, the requirement to mine the earth for materials will reduce, eventually leading to conserving the natural resources. Research revealed that metal deposit in e-waste is 40-50 times higher than ore extraction. This shows that if businesses start to do IT recycling, we will conserve the earth’s resources. Additionally, it is an efficient way to obtain natural resources.
- When you focus on IT recycling, you prevent old IT products and e-waste from reaching landfills. Meaning, you contribute to reducing the carbon footprints. Additionally, when you do IT recycling, you are helping the less fortunate people of this world to get hold of devices, which they otherwise might not. If you don’t want to hand your IT products to a recycling company, you can directly donate your IT products to people who need them. However, before doing that, ensure to destroy all the data that could be there.
In Summary
Don’t dispose of your old IT products in the trash; instead, contact a WEEE directive and GDPR compliant IT product recycle company who will destroy the data on the IT device before doing IT recycling. IT recycling will not just save this planet, but it will also be beneficial for less fortunate people. If you want to dispose of IT with confidence, contact Asset Disposal. Let Asset Disposal take care of your IT product waste and do the needful.