How To Prevent Your Old Computer From Harming The Environment

You may have planned to introduce new computers into your organisation and abandon the old ones. Rather than dumping them as e-waste, consider donating them. And before you do so, remember to take a few precautionary steps...

Discarding old PCs can be a real problem for companies when upgrading to new ones. Nowadays, we are forced to consider only the environment friendly and socially-acceptable ways to dispose of a personal computer. Over the years, tons of electronic equipment containing hazardous materials like plastic, lead cadmium, chromium, and mercury, have been dumped into the environment.

According to Dr Thuppil Venkatesh, a professor of biochemistry at St John's Medical Centre in Bangalore, 53 per cent of children under 12 in India's cities are lead-poisoned. Considering that the volumes of e-waste will only grow, today, an organisation should be very conscious about the impact of its discarded equipment on the local community. This article will look at some socially responsible avenues through which companies can ensure that their e-waste does not pose a hazard to public health.

Option 1: Determine the usability of old PCs

If the computers in your organisation are less than five years old, the chances are they can be put to good use by someone else. The keyboard, mouse, printer, modem, packaged software and many other small parts have a longer life than the computer itself. Organisations can always use such parts before selling off/discarding the old computers to cut costs.

Option 2: Donate If the computers are more than five years old and have ceased to be productive in the demanding environment of your office, they might still be adequate for the needs of a smaller firm. It would be feasible to donate them to a non-governmental organisation or someone else you know. Wipe out all old data, replace any inexpensive non-working parts, maybe add basic software and then try to find the computers a new home.

There are a variety of charity organisations that will accept old computers for use in local offices. However, you can never be completely certain where or with whom your old computers (that contain sensitive data including passwords and credit card details) will end up. Sensitive data might still be lurking on your computers' hard drives. And if one of your old computers fall into the wrong hands, your personal information or even your staff members' confidential identity details could be at stake.

Precautions are necessary. Here are a few things to keep in mind before donating or giving away your systems:

1) Pass on the original documents: While donating the old computers to an NGO or school, keep the operating system intact since the licence is only valid when used with the machine on which it was originally installed. It is also wise to pass along the original disks, media, user manual, and other documentation that came with the equipment to the organisation that you are donating it to.

2) Use secure methods to eradicate data: Since deleted files technically still exist on the Windows computer's hard drive, there are chances that deleted files can still be recovered using certain software. For this reason, it is advisable that you use a more secure method when cleaning hard drives prior to donation or re-cycling.

Lionel Dsouza from UTVI News Media says, "All the confidential data exists on the hard drive and having advanced software to wipe out this data would always be recommended as a standard procedure. The other components do not need to be worried about, with regard to compromising confidentiality. The same applies during the repair of the hard drive where external agencies are involved."

Ask your computer re-cycler to use disk-wiping software (or ask your vendor for it) to ensure maximum security. These programs come in both free and commercial varieties and work by overwriting all data on the drive. This, in turn, will make it extremely difficult for someone to recover the contents of the hard drives.

3) Back up all important data: Before discarding your old computers and upgrading to new systems, make sure that your organisation has backed up all documents and programs that you want to keep on another computer.

Get an external drive, an online storage account, removable media such as DVDs/CDs or partition your internal hard drive/external hard drive for this purpose. In the new models of computers, it is easy to re-format your hard drive and re-install the operating system by rebooting your computer with the original set-up disc in the CD-ROM drive.

4) Keep your records: Always maintain the address of the person to whom you have donated or sold off your old company computers. If you donate your computers to an NGO, you are likely to benefit from a tax deduction too.

Option 3: Re-cycle your old machine

Any equipment that is not working or is in a poor state should be tagged for re-cycling. This involves employing people to strip down the computers and extract parts that can be used again in other machines.

Some computer recycling firms in India include Delite Computer Recycling Industry at Aurangabad, Maharastra and Netsoft in Kerala. Some refurbishing organisations, however, do not consider anything older than a Pentium II.

According to Hitesh Jain, who works as a broker in the rubber industry in Punjab, "In many offices, we ask the local vendor to get the old parts valued as scrap and an exchange value is determined. The same value is then deducted from the cost of the new computer."

"All the data is wiped out and the computer or laptop is rebooted for there is a good second hand laptop and computer market in India,"adds Jain.

Manufacturer re-cycling programs: Many of the larger computer and electronics companies like Dell and IBM now also offer recycling programs. These companies take old computer parts in exchange for credits towards the purchase of new equipment.

They also have simple pick-up and recovery services for which they charge a small fee. Some of the recycling programs include the Acer Recycling Program, the Apple Recycling Program, ASUS Take back and Recycling, Dell Recycling, among many others. If there are no re-cycling organisations near you, or you cannot find any that will take your equipment, then you can also try to donate your old computers online. There are a couple of online programs like 'Donate A PC'.

Additionally, eBay, the world's leading forum for selling used goods, also works to ease your problems in recycling, through its Rethink Initiative. The online auction giant spearheaded Rethink earlier this year to confront the growing problem of e-waste. Backed by Intel, Rethink coordinates the re-cycling programs of more than two dozen major computer manufacturers, retailers, and cell phone companies--as well as government agencies, environmental groups and charities. Check out http://pages.ebay.com/RETHINK/index.html for more details.

Though the volume of computers waste has been growing, the means of properly disposing and re-cycling these items is also increasing. Whether the equipment is disposed of through an organisation, charity or is donated to someone you know, it is important to try and properly dispose of our old gear in order to prevent damage to our environment.

--Nidhi Sharma

The author is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. She can be reached at nidi_sharma@yahoo.com