Selling or Donating That Old Computer?

Chris Rodinis

December 20th, 2012

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

When a consumer purchases a new laptop for the first time, he might consider selling his old desktop. After all the laptop does everything better and the desktop is no longer needed.

The consumer then does some research and finds that the current resale value of his old desktop is only 10% of the price he paid two years ago.

The consumer wisely decides that selling is not worth it compared to donating it to someone who will treasure it.

Now this consumer is so motivated he begins to collect old computers in order to reallocate them to students or adults that could make valuable use out of them. This is beneficial in two ways; first, the computer is re-purposed; and second, a small portion of e-waste has just been diverted from a landfill and or an incinerator.

Acts of Ecology Are Goodwill

This act of ecology by the consumer leads to a new social program for urban areas. A program where college students band together collecting, refurbishing, testing and donating these “trashed” computers to poor students and adults that desperately need them.

With a little ingenuity the students are able to cannibalize parts or add some inexpensive memory and bring to life a once dead asset. Charities and underfunded community organizations love this program for obvious reasons.

If the students conduct a used computer fundraising event just four times per year over a three day weekend, they could easily donate up to 100 computers to an organization that would put them to good use. One such organization would be the school computer lab which has since doubled its inventory of computers!

For example, here is a statistic which cries out for the “policy of reusing.” Currently in India, there are approximately 24 million desktops in operation. These 24 million will become obsolete in two to four years or sooner because of computer hardware trends.

The hope of this type of computer recycling program is to repurpose the “e-waste” stream into something sustainable with no negative impact to the environment.

Data Destruction is Required

As a reminder to all, secure data destruction is a critical part of this e-waste stream.

Secure data destruction is accomplished through shredding, degaussing, the firmware deletion process and overwriting the drive.

Accomplishing secure data destruction also requires additional diligence at all points of the e-waste recycling process. Here are some procedures to follow for proper handling of secure data destruction:

• Screen Employees
• Monitor and surveil employees at work
• Control Access
• Train Employees
• Develop strong policies and procedures
• Create audit trails
• Audit your process
• NAID certification helps
• R2 and E-steward certification helps
• Lock all bins being transported or stored at client site
• Use secure physical storage at ewaste processing location e.g. cages
• Barcode labels to track assets
• Mandatory certificates of destruction
• Destruction can be on-site or off-site
• Degaussing is an option but not for reuse
• Scheduling of destruction times
• Large quantities of e-waste can be discounted
• Property managers usually are notified
• Pickup logistics are useful for some clients
• Incineration is possible only with certified smelters and refiners
• Trucks tracked by GPS are an important tool against theft
• Serializing assets as they are processed is best practice
• For more information www.EwasteWiz.com