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Recycling and donating electronics  – Green IT initiatives

Even if you have a consumption reducing program, your company will have electronics that are at the end of their useful life.  Moving is a time when companies purge the old and electronics are no exception.  Designing a new office is a great time to modernize and check the usefulness of computers and peripherals.  Monitors, printers and battery backups are a few of the devices that you should examine closely.  Upgrading monitors and printers can give you a real return-on-investment and too often our battery backups are overlooked or neglected.

LAN System has a free recycling program.  You can drop off your equipment at our office or we will make arrangements for pickup during your normal on-site support.   We also will prepare your equipment for donation to a school or charity of your choice.  There is a nominal charge for this service as we will clean up data and make sure that all software is properly licensed.  If you have question or want to arrange for this service, please call us at 770 662-0312 or email recycle@lansystems.com.

Recycling electronics

Responsible recycling is essential.  Computer equipment and electronics that cannot be reused or donated must be environmentally recycled.  This includes printers and print cartridges.  Some retailers (like Staples) will give you cash back for your used cartridges.  To dispose of any device that has a battery, like uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) or battery backup, take it to a recycle center.

Before you send your computer to a recycler, be sure that confidential data is completely removed.  Files that have only been deleted or erased, can be easily recovered.  So if you have to comply to HIPPA or any other regulations or have sensitive data, be sure that you use secure delete standards, such as the Department of Defense 5220.22-M.

Donating electronics

Remember you have to clear sensitive and personal data and that simply deleting or reformatting the hard drive is not adequate.  If you are including software, you have to make sure that you do not violate the terms of the software license.  For more information, see the booklet “Do the PC Thing: Donate Computers” published by the EPA.

LAN Systems would be happy to arrange for recycling or donating to your favorite non-profit through our recycling program.  There is a nominal fee for our donation program that includes removing / clearing your data and checking software licenses.

More technical notes at www.lansystems.com/technotes.html

If want to discuss these and other ideas, please email me at mary@lansystems.com.