The Economic Advantage Of Computer Recycling

By Fiona O'Brien



In this world of technological innovation, every day we participate in a constant and accelerated cycle of electronic renewal. The computer industry is at the forefront of this regeneration, accumulating billions each year from a multi-faceted demand, yet, despite this demand, computers rarely survive very long. "The useful life of a computer is only three to five years and shrinking," reports the Environmental Protection Agency, going on to say that, in 2005, "more than 63 million personal computers are projected to be retired according to a recent study by the National Safety Council."

Technology is a huge expense for businesses and, when a computer becomes obsolete, so does the company's capital investment in it. For this reason, companies would be wise to tap into the computer industry's robust profits they themselves help generate, by selling their used computers and other "end-of-life" electronics.

Not only do companies recover some of their investment in reselling old hardware, they make computers and the materials they're composed of more sustainable resources. Computers do not disintegrate as quickly or as completely as the money spent on them, so while the manufacturing of computers has accelerated, their decomposition has not. The magnitude of waste computers generate is overwhelming. In the United States alone, 3.2 million tons of electronic waste is dumped into landfills each year largely because so few of them are recycled - only 11% in 2001.

Much of today's electronic waste, or e-waste, is also a gargantuan environmental dilemma because it is toxic. Almost every piece of hardware contains some form of metal and, according to the EPA, there is an average of four pounds of lead in each computer. Some computers also contain precious metals such as silver, gold and platinum in chips - expensive resources that have a high demand in many markets. While there are regulations in place for disposing of computers, they are expensive for companies to comply with, especially considering that materials need to be manually sorted.

When computers are resold to recovery companies instead of being retired to landfills, the economy benefits in that expenses are reduced all around. Businesses can divest themselves of e-waste and multiply the supply and demand cycle for the same product, extract its maximum value and in essence propel an exchange that sustains the economy. This exchange is optimized when what is sold is then reused and everyone's technology needs are met. A company can sell in bulk computers no longer useful to it and buy the latest technology, allowing for a college student to afford one of those personal computers, so that both become more powerful in being technologically equipped.

Companies such as Capitol Asset, which operates in the D.C. metro area, buy obsolete computers while assuming important environmental and data confidentiality responsibilities during the recycling process. Capitol Asset's brother company, PC Retro, then reverses the recycling process because obsolete hardware is not demanufactured, or separated into materials for further recycling, but refurbished, tested and resold. This increases the hardware's life expectancy twofold while providing an environmentally sound, more cost-effective hardware solution for other consumers. Companies such as this are pulling computers back from the vast wasteland of dead electronics and resurrecting them into a three-way profit.

Ultimately, selling obsolete hardware reaps societal benefits because, in selling their old computers, companies are also inadvertently bridging the digital divide, which is defined by DigitalDivide.org as "the gap between those able to benefit by digital technologies and those who are not." DigitalDivide.org notes that, "In fall of 2000, the U.S. Department of Commerce found that White (46.1%) and Asian American & Pacific Islander (56.8%) households continued to have Internet access at levels more than double those of Black (23.5%) and Hispanic (23.6%) households," while "86.3% of households earning $75,000 and above per year had Internet access compared to 12.7% of households earning less than $15,000 per year." However, these gaps are narrowing each year as computers become more affordable and therefore more widely available, a process in which recycling computers certainly plays a large role.



Fiona K. O'Brien is with PC Retro. She can be reached at 301-.