A little late for Blog Action Day, but good all the same is eWeek’s green issue. The entire issue is devoted to green IT discussions and overall it’s a great issue. The articles I was most interested in were devoted to e-waste.
E-waste is basically technology waste and much of it in the world comes from offices and businesses just like yours. Items like cell phones, old computers, monitors, palms, and all the other little technologies that make work better but also create massive waste. According to the newest statistics:
- 160 million PCs (that’s 460,000 a day) will be thrown away worldwide in 2007.
- Of that number only 27% will be recycled.
- 550 million cell phones will be replaced with new cells and 90-95% of the old cells won’t be reused they’ll just be tossed.
The items that are part of e-waste include plastics (and PVCs), chromium, lead, mercury, and other nasty items that can be dangerous for humans and the earth. A big company can have a lot of trouble choosing how to even begin a recycling program for all their tech trash. This is more complicated that simply grabbing a recycle box from a company like Office Depot and loading it up. Most companies have confidential files and a sheer capacity of so much waste that it’s overwhelming to know where to start.
To break this up; the next two posts will cover how to start recycling tech waste in a larger company or office space and also what the recycling companies might not be telling you.
Office Supplies Office Furniture Office Chairs Office Desks Wholesale Office Supply
» 35 Green Office Tips for Earth Day from OfficeStuffer
I don't do the whole celebrate Earth Day deal too much - it does sort of seem like almost too small a step nowadays. We should celebrate Earth Day all year round, if we truly want to make a... [Read More]
Tracked on: April 22, 2008 9:18 AM | Permalink to Trackback