If one PC is missed and some sensitive data is sold to a recycling company, and somehow somebody finds it and reports it, there is hell to pay in the press and potential liability. Why take the risk? There is no incentive to re-use these computers. Plus, let's face it, nobody wants old pc's anyway. I tried putting up a bunch of them for free on our local equivalent of Craigslist last year and nobody wanted them, I ended up paying a recycling company to come pick them up. (~ 3-4 year old machines, admittedly with 21" CRT monitors)
I just got rid of 50 old pc's for one company I worked for, within seconds of placing an ad on marktplaats we had a taker, a couple of guys from Amsterdam came to pick them up an hour later.
I oversaw the hard drive removal, if you can't be trusted to be sure that you have removed the drives from those pc's before sending them to the recycler how can you be sure that you've done a proper job before sending them in to be scrapped? It's the exact same problem after all.
OK well fair enough but this is another thing I don't understand, maybe its cause I live in central europe but why the heck would you pay someone to recycle something? I gathered all my old hardware (~10 desktops) and sold it for scrap, theres actually lots of rare earth metals in there. All you have to do is take them apart and drive to your local metal recycling point, they give great prices by the kilo. You won't get rich but at least you know its not gonna pollute some dumpyard somewhere.
Its just weird for me because if you pay someone to recycle computers they do exactly that which means they get money from you and the scrap people for essentially just taking things apart (which is kinda fun right?).
The issue was mostly the CRT's - they're like 20 or 25 kg each, I would've had to lug all of them down 3 flights of stairs, plus I would've had to hire a van to bring them away or drive 5 times or so with my car. Plus there are hardly any metals in the monitors, so I wouldn't have gotten paid for them anyway. We were moving offices at the time, I had other things on my mind. I made a deal where everything including the CRT's and a bunch of really old stuff like old ink-jet printers etc. were taken away. Maybe I would've gotten paid a bit had I sold just the PC's - even then it would've been so little that it wouldn't have been worth my time, plus I would've had to pay more for the rest.
Regardless of whether it's possible to get some pocket change for old pc's, the point is: it's not cost effective, when you count the hourly salary of a professional, to do anything more than the absolute minimum to dispose of old computers. Especially for a government organization - bureaucracies are not designed for cost-effectiveness, but for predictability and accountability. That is not a value judgement, just an observation, but one that immediately dispels of 50% of whining about 'governments wasting money'.
Well, there are many reasons. For once, it might not be legal for companies to take apart and dispose of their own computers without a permit (for safety and pollution concerns). Those permits and regulations might also raise the costs of the recycling company, which may need special equipment or training for its employees. Then there's labor costs, which in Germany are well above the EU-27 average.
Comments
If one PC is missed and some sensitive data is sold to a recycling company, and somehow somebody finds it and reports it, there is hell to pay in the press and potential liability. Why take the risk? There is no incentive to re-use these computers. Plus, let's face it, nobody wants old pc's anyway. I tried putting up a bunch of them for free on our local equivalent of Craigslist last year and nobody wanted them, I ended up paying a recycling company to come pick them up. (~ 3-4 year old machines, admittedly with 21" CRT monitors)
I just got rid of 50 old pc's for one company I worked for, within seconds of placing an ad on marktplaats we had a taker, a couple of guys from Amsterdam came to pick them up an hour later.
I oversaw the hard drive removal, if you can't be trusted to be sure that you have removed the drives from those pc's before sending them to the recycler how can you be sure that you've done a proper job before sending them in to be scrapped? It's the exact same problem after all.
OK well fair enough but this is another thing I don't understand, maybe its cause I live in central europe but why the heck would you pay someone to recycle something? I gathered all my old hardware (~10 desktops) and sold it for scrap, theres actually lots of rare earth metals in there. All you have to do is take them apart and drive to your local metal recycling point, they give great prices by the kilo. You won't get rich but at least you know its not gonna pollute some dumpyard somewhere.
Its just weird for me because if you pay someone to recycle computers they do exactly that which means they get money from you and the scrap people for essentially just taking things apart (which is kinda fun right?).
The issue was mostly the CRT's - they're like 20 or 25 kg each, I would've had to lug all of them down 3 flights of stairs, plus I would've had to hire a van to bring them away or drive 5 times or so with my car. Plus there are hardly any metals in the monitors, so I wouldn't have gotten paid for them anyway. We were moving offices at the time, I had other things on my mind. I made a deal where everything including the CRT's and a bunch of really old stuff like old ink-jet printers etc. were taken away. Maybe I would've gotten paid a bit had I sold just the PC's - even then it would've been so little that it wouldn't have been worth my time, plus I would've had to pay more for the rest.
Regardless of whether it's possible to get some pocket change for old pc's, the point is: it's not cost effective, when you count the hourly salary of a professional, to do anything more than the absolute minimum to dispose of old computers. Especially for a government organization - bureaucracies are not designed for cost-effectiveness, but for predictability and accountability. That is not a value judgement, just an observation, but one that immediately dispels of 50% of whining about 'governments wasting money'.
Well, there are many reasons. For once, it might not be legal for companies to take apart and dispose of their own computers without a permit (for safety and pollution concerns). Those permits and regulations might also raise the costs of the recycling company, which may need special equipment or training for its employees. Then there's labor costs, which in Germany are well above the EU-27 average.