Responsible electronics recycling: turning policy into practice
IT professionals have become good environmental and privacy stewards during the past 10 years - on paper.
IT professionals have become good environmental and privacy stewards during the past 10 years -- on paper.
Corporate policy now generally reflects the fundamental tenets of good electronics stewardship, requiring verifiable data destruction and forbidding the use of landfills and export in lieu of responsible recycling.
As anyone who receives RFPs for IT asset disposition can confirm, the market has spoken.
Why, then, is eBay a bazaar for hard drives containing corporate and personal data? How is it possible that a majority of e-waste still is being exported to developing countries, according to most estimates?
Blame fraud. And lack of governance. And limited, or non-existent, downstream transparency.
In spite of companies' official intentions, policy objectives go unfulfilled for fundamental shortcomings: (1) Many electronics recycling vendors say one thing and do another; (2) Most corporate clients fail to hold their organizations and vendors accountable for actual results; (3) The e-cycling industry has perpetuated an unacceptable norm for transparency and accountability.
All this would change with a federal e-waste export ban such as that introduced by U.S. Reps. Gene Green (Texas) and Mike Thompson (California) into the U.S. Congress.
Unfortunately, these lawmakers' genuine concern for preventing the toxic trade in e-waste has been compromised by special interests insisting on an exemption allowing the export of non-working electronics to developing countries if they are merely designated for "repair."
Such a loophole would allow an unscrupulous industry to simply change its paperwork and continue the export business as usual.While Congress debates the issue, real progress depends as much on corporate leadership insisting that their organizations recognize and pay the full costs of environmentally and socially responsible policies - and get what they pay for.
Further, responsible IT professionals should consider if they are guilty of externalizing their costs of stewardship.
Most companies are accomplished at running competitive bids for recycling contracts, driving costs low, but often with the unintended consequence of ensuring that their recycler MUST export to turn a profit.
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