Computer Recycling For Environmental Issues

IT manufacturing industry has a large carbon footprint, which can be reduced through the reuse and re-deployment of surplus computer equipment and computer recycling.

We are all aware of the impact our use of scarce resources has on the environment.
Two years ago, saw a sudden and long-term increase in prices of steel, copper and gold. These are brought about mainly fast and somewhat unexpectedly, the growth of Chinese economy. Why would it have any impact on the recycling of computers you might ask? Depletion does not re-newable resources leaves only two options, find new material (very expensive) or find a way to recycle and extract old. With the price of gold hitting $ 400 per Troy ounce, suddenly become very viable for recycling, such as our own to market our services. There was a big boom in computer recycling during the past year.

Most of the environmental concerns with computers lie with the monitor, especially his cathode ray tube (CRT). Each color monitor contains, on average, four to five pounds of lead, considered hazardous waste when selling. Computers and contain other dangerous substances, including mercury, cadmium (a known carcinogen), and hexavalent chromium (shown to cause high blood pressure, iron-poor blood, liver and nerve and brain damage in animals). More than 314 million computers are thrown at the end of 2007, containing 1.2 billion pounds of lead, 2 million pounds of cadmium, 1.2 million pounds of hexavalent chromium, and 400,000 kg of mercury.

Part of the problem of recycling a computer, after upgrading computer systems, most organizations store their old computers, which serve as backup equipment in case newer computers break down. These old computers often sit in storage and out of their potential lifespan. At some point, the decision must be made on the disposal of this equipment. Continue to store it is often not a viable option, eventually takes a considerable amount of prostora.Najnepoželjniji option is to throw old computers in the trash. Computer recycling comes to the fore in every possible scenario, not only has an effect on the environment, there is a possibility that someone removing hard drives and recovering sensitive data.

a number of factors have led to an upsurge of interest for people who want to recycle old computer kit, including a growing awareness about environmental protection, as well as the recent introduction in the UK on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) Directive. (1 - June - 2006)

At the time of first writing this article on the BBC News website had an excellent article about identity theft and disposal / recycling of old computers and I quote from the article "Bank account details belonging to thousands of Britons are being sold in West Africa for less from £ 20 each, BBC Real Story program found.

It was discovered that fraudsters in Nigeria were able to find internet banking data stored on recycled PCs sent from Britain to Africa ."

This drives home the point that you should destroy data on your hard drive - before getting rid of a computer or hard drive in it. Computer recycling is not always about the environment, but companies and national security importance too.

From an environmental point of view it is far better to recycle computers in an official recycling center rather than sell it. It may even be illegal in some countries to dispose of electrical equipment in any other way than by taking a certified computer recycling center, or send back to the original manufacturer.