Thanks to IBM and their computer recycling program, companies now have an environmentally safe option when they need to get rid of the old to make room for the new.

In 1965, Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, made the observation that the memory capacity for microchips doubles every 18 to 24 months. The effects of this dynamic, known as Moore’s Law, forces industries to meet the rising technology standards by purchasing new computers every few years. Traditionally, when storerooms piled up with outdated computer equipment, the next step was traditionally to deposit the outdated hardware in the nearest landfill where its noxious materials likely created environmental problems for the future. Now, companies are shipping their outdated computers to be broken down and reworked at computer recycling centers such as the one IBM operates in Morrisville, NC.

Much of a computer’s hardware, is made up of plastic, leaded glass and toxic metals such as cadmium, which can definitely be classified as environmentally unsafe. While disposing of these materials in landfills is still legal in many areas, doing so is considered to be environmentally insensitive. Schools, which used to be perfect places to donate old computers, are now in the age of the affordable PC and have their own technological standards to pursue. To help solve this dilemma, some computer companies such as Compaq, Dell and IBM, are offering computer recycling. Of the three, it is IBM that has taken the greatest strides in developing a recycling program. By the end of this year, the computer giant expects to recycle some 500,000 computers and predicts it will be handling a whopping one million annually in two to three years.

Did IBM become a proponent of computer recycling purely for altruistic reasons? Not exactly. Charles “Chip” Walsh, director of global strategy and market development at IBM Global Financing, states bluntly: “Everything we do is economically based.” This year alone, IBM stands to produce an additional 1.5 billion dollars via re-leasing or selling used computers, mainframes, servers and parts.

IBM’s recycling project got its start 15 years ago when the company received returned mainframes that had been leased four years prior. “We hadn’t thought about what we would do when the 308X series went off lease and started coming back,” Walsh says. To deal with the returns, IBM began exploring ways to either rebuild the outdated machines or mine them for salvageable parts. Since many of IBM’s machines, from laptops to mainframes, are leased, devising a plan for returns quickly became a priority.

The returns IBM receives are usually sent to an enormous warehouse in Morrisville, NC. With continuous truckloads of used computers on the way, there is a lot of pressure to move the entire inventory of the warehouse about every 10 days. During its brief stay in the Morrisville warehouse, a computer’s hard drive is erased, its units are checked to see if they match the shipping order and its components are checked to see if they’re in working condition. Its memory is then upgraded, if necessary, and the hardware is cleaned. The computer is given a final inspection before it’s packed and shipped off to be resold.

Of course, not every machine that enters the Morrisville plant will come out ready for resale; some are simply not fit for repair. In these cases, workers rescue usable drives and memory chips, sort them by type, and then auction them online. About 10% of the machines that come through Morrisville are considered irreparable. These are shipped off to Endicott, NY where they undergo what IBM calls “end of life management”. At Endicott, the end-of-the-line computers are completely dismantled. The pieces are then shipped to recycling firms around the country that handle computer materials like plastic, aluminum or leaded glass. The Endicott plant typically reprocesses 35 million pounds of computers annually. Add in what IBM recycles at several smaller sites, and the company’s yearly recycling volume exceeds 100 million pounds of computer materials.

Of the computers being ripped apart at Endicott, 100% of the actual computer parts are reused or sent on to recyclers to be melted down and resold. Less than 3% of the material arriving at the site gets shipped to the nearest landfill and that small amount consists entirely of packaging material. IBM has helped found a local plastics recycling firm, Aurora Plastics, in close proximity to the Endicott plant in the hopes of reducing this small margin. The company’s overall goal is to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfills by 10% a year.

At this point IBM’s recycling program is still limited to high-volume corporate sales and lease contracts. To address consumer sales, IBM and other industry leaders are currently working on a nationwide referral system that would allow consumers to click on a computer maker’s website, enter their zip code or other identifier, and find the nearest computer recycler that handles consumer machines.

The way its looking, the profit IBM reaps from its recycling program only stands to grow. As global environmental regulations become stricter, the computer company predicts its asset recovery services will be needed more than ever before. This seems to be one case where environmental concerns and corporate profit go hand in hand.

Source: Life After Death
Scott McMurray
Ecompany.com, Dec. 2000
http://www.ecompany.com/articles/mag/0,1640,8772,00.html