If you’re in charge of ensuring your company’s retired IT assets are disposed of legally and responsibly, you’re faced with a challenging task. IT assets often pass through a number of hands before they reach their final disposition. That’s a lot of steps in the chain to investigate. On top of that, recyclers may not always be entirely transparent about what they do with your assets. Horror stories about huge stockpiles of monitors and other equipment languishing in warehouses, or appallingly unsafe conditions at processing facilities in Africa or Asia, have become commonplace in the news. It has become clear that simply relying on your IT asset disposition provider’s word (or “certificate of recycling”) for it that it handles your material properly is not enough to ensure environmental compliance for asset disposition. But, there are three better things you can do:
1. Ask the right questions
The first step to environmental compliance for asset disposition is to challenge your vendors to provide you satisfactory information about how and where they handle electronic waste. Ask to take a tour of their facility. If your vendor declines, it could mean they have something to hide. Also ask where your vendor sends material downstream. If your ITAD provider can’t or won’t tell you where it sends material downstream, you should be concerned. It could mean its partners do not follow compliant recycling practices, or your vendor doesn’t know if they do.
2. Choose a certified IT recycling vendor
The two most respected certifications to look for in the IT recycling industry are e-Stewards and R2/RIOS. Both were developed with the backing of experts in the electronics recycling industry, as well as environmental and workplace health and safety advocates. Neither standard allows for material to reach landfills. They also require that ITAD providers audit all of their downstream partners to ensure they follow all laws and standards, as well. If an electronics recycler or remarketer has taken the time and spent the money (it’s not an insignificant amount) to receive either certification, it shows it is committed to doing IT asset disposition correctly and exposing its clients, like your company, to a minimal amount of risk.
While there is much overlap between the two standards, there are some differences between e-Stewards and R2/RIOS. Thus, some organizations require both to ensure they are meeting the highest standards in every regard. Just a few electronics recyclers in the United States have made the investment to become certified for both standards.
3. Make a plan
Done right—that is, done in a way that reduces risk, cost, and business interruption—IT asset disposition is a complex undertaking that requires the participation of a diverse group of stakeholders within an enterprise. This is one of the reasons the environmental issues associated with ITAD are often overlooked. An enterprise may have a “green team” and an environmental policy, but if those people and that policy are not consulted, their expertise and requirements will not be integrated into the enterprise’s ITAD process. A good IT asset disposition provider should not only dispose of your retired assets according to all laws and standards, but it should help you make a plan that fits your environmental obligations alongside other factors, like data security, cost and investment recovery potential .
Read more about how environmental compliance fits into this “holistic” approach to IT asset disposition in our new white paper, “The 2013 Guide to Environmental Compliance in IT Asset Disposition.”
