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Dispose of IT Equipment Without Sharing Secrets

The threat of data loss, coupled with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, has IT pros rethinking their disposal methods for computer gear.

By Shawna McAlearney

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Businesses also face the threat of fines from government agencies if their equipment turns up in illegal dumping sites. While laws vary among the U.S. states, the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act provides guidelines for both businesses and equipment makers in reference to reuse, recycling, donating and disposing of computer equipment.

Computing equipment can contain toxic or hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium and chromium. According to U.S. government researchers, 500 million computers contain some 6.32 billion pounds of plastics and more than 1.5 billion pounds of lead.

To help tackle the disposal problem, vendors such as Dell, HP Financial Services and IBM have come up with asset recovery and recycling services designed to help companies get the most of old equipment, ease the recycling process and mitigate the risks of illegal dumping.

According to HP, as much as 90 percent of IT equipment can be resold if it’s processed promptly after coming offline, but every day it sits in a storeroom, the value drops and the likelihood of a theft or a security intrusion increases. Separately, IBM reports that with recycling and reuse options, just 2 percent of the equipment that is processed through its Asset Recovery Solutions business ends up in landfills.

One IT executive who wished to remain anonymous said HP’s recycling services help ensure his company doesn’t suffer a public incident, while also following an environmentally friendly approach.

"We want to keep ourselves out of landfills and out of the papers if God forbid something happened," said the head of PC infrastructure and architecture at a financial services firm. "We are buying HP equipment and sending it back, so it’s not a big financial win; costs are flat. But we like the idea that the next wave of our equipment might be made partly of recycled materials."

Scrubbing systems clean
To ensure data is entirely removed and equipment disposed of lawfully, Kritcher said, his organization revamped its processes and started working with Dell for equipment recycling services several months ago, following a string of news about other company data breaches.

"The last thing you want is to have your discarded electronic equipment sitting in a landfill with your asset tags—regardless of how they got there. Even worse, there could be recoverable data on the drives," he said.

Also, because White Electronic Designs is a contractor with the Department of Defense, it must adhere to stringent confidentiality rules. IT staff routinely erase all data from desktops, laptops and servers, for instance, using software tools or by physically destroying the media.