Rapid technological change, low initial cost and even planned obsolescence have fueled a high rate of turnover for network hardware appliances, creating a fast-growing problem around the globe.
The environmental impact caused by electronics waste (e-waste) and other forms of pollution, including the greenhouse effect, is astounding. The beautiful glaciers that give Mount Kilimanjaro its distinct appearance are disappearing at an alarming rate and have lost 82 percent of their ice since 1912. At the current rate of erosion, Kilimanjaro's glaciers will be ancient history by the year 2020.
IT manufacturers with financial incentives are brilliant at encouraging customers to buy the next iteration of their product, even if the existing one still works. The short life span of today's IT equipment--such as routers and network switches from manufacturers such as Cisco, Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, Foundry and Extreme--is contributing to a new form of scenery: mountains of e-waste, rivaling Kilimanjaro in scope if not beauty.
Accumulated e-waste is either dumped in landfill sites or recycled in the secondary market. The waste is often processed in poorly managed facilities in developing countries, leading to significant health risks and causing a major negative impact on the environment.
Did you know that chemicals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium emitted from discarded electronics are some of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases worldwide? A typical router or switch may contain more than 2 percent lead by weight and up to 38 separate chemical elements.
A 24-kg PC or server from a manufacturer such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun or IBM needs at least 240 kg of fossil fuels and 22 kg of chemicals to provide its energy. Compare that with cars or refrigerators, which use only between one and two times their weight in fossil fuels.
Health risks
Further, the United Nations warns that people could be exposed to health risks at both ends of the short life span of networking equipment. Chemicals such as brominated flame retardants and heavy metals, including lead and cadmium, pose potential risks to factory workers and can also contaminate water supplies near landfill sites where old computers are dumped.
Because of lower environmental standards and working conditions in China, India, Kenya and elsewhere, e-waste is being sent to these countries for processing--in most cases illegally. The majority of defunct and junked e-waste ends up being broken down by ill-equipped laborers working under hazardous conditions.
Uncontrolled burning and other disposal methods are causing environmental and health problems. Those methods emit harmful gases that deplete our atmosphere over time and thus have emerged as major contributors to global warming.
Each year, more than 130 million computers are produced worldwide. In the United States alone, an estimated 14 million to 20 million PCs and network appliances are thrown out each year, while developing nations are expected to triple their output of all electronics waste by 2010. In 2005, more than 250 million personal computers became obsolete.
This is evidenced by the average life span of PCs, which fell from 4.5 years in 1992 to an estimated two years in 2005. Across the European Union, electrical equipment is the fastest-growing category of rubbish, with around 20 kg per person produced every year. "The U.K. alone is now generating around 1 million tons of the stuff every year," energy minister Malcolm Wicks, said in a recent presentation.
If you do the math, it is clear that the current trend of mass production with no regard for corporate social responsibility cannot continue. If we maintain our current rate of consumption, our children face the prospect of inheriting a world of blistering temperatures and severe storms, with 13 of the world's 15 largest cities submerged in seawater.
The days when businesses could send a product into the marketplace without first considering how it might affect the environment are over. Global recycling and product recovery programs, through which businesses take responsibility for what they make and sell, are already under way worldwide.
"Not far from now, 'nongreen' parts will be assigned end-of-life status, and green legislation will come to impact every single PC manufacturer" around the globe, said Mike Escherich, principal research analyst at technology research and advisory firm Gartner Inc. "The worldwide market should expect to see longer lead times, parts shortages and rising prices for noncompliant parts over the next two years. These costs will probably be passed on to consumers."
After many delays, The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations governing the safe disposal of IT equipment were finally passed into law in the European Union. The new legislation will come into full effect in July.
The law will place a greater administrative burden on suppliers of computer equipment to EU countries. Vendors will have to register with waste schemes and more closely track their products in order to pay for those products' eventual disposal.
Under the new law, manufacturers will have until March 15 to register with approved disposal schemes, and by April 1 all new equipment sold in the European Union will have to be marked with WEEE labels displaying a date code and the standard logo of a crossed-out trash bin. The directive will then come into full effect on July 1, with producers taking responsibility for treating and recycling household and business waste electrical and electronic equipment.
The first of its kind, but certainty not the last, the WEEE directive is setting the stage for the future. Similar laws and regulations are being considered now in the United States as Congress debates a number of e-waste management bills. One of them, the National Computer Recycling Act, introduced by Rep. Mike Thompson, D.-Calif., has continually stalled, but several states have passed their own laws governing e-waste management.
California was the first state to enact such legislation, followed by Maryland, Maine and Washington. It is only a matter of time until societal and corporate ethics evolve to include e-waste disposal. For our children, the idea of throwing an old monitor in the dumpster will be as unsettling as it is for some of us to throw trash on the floor.
Business weighs in
Several businesses have emerged to meet this new demand and help companies comply with the new legislation outlines for approved disposal schemes. One such company was recently established by Joe Asady, chief executive officer of Digital Warehouse and UsedCisco.com.
Asady's new business is Networkrecycler.com. "Our model is to help protect the environment by providing a system and an environmentally friendly way of disposing of end-of-life network equipment," the entrepreneur said.
Networkrecycler.com has opened offices in New York, Amsterdam and Bengaluru, India, to help meet the growing worldwide demand for recycling network hardware. Several similar companies are forming worldwide, and soon, an entirely new industry will spring up around the concept of e-waste recycling.
Facilitated by the new awareness of the need for computer recycling, the used-network-hardware business--already a $3 billion industry--is poised to grow considerably in the coming years.
"Traditionally, people would shy away from used equipment because of the inherent risk that it presented," said Asady. "However, with the current competition in the secondary market, we have raised our quality standards. We now provide guarantees that outlast even the original warranty given when the unit was new."
Used network equipment is often renovated by various resellers, such as Digital Warehouse. Afterward, the gear is sold in the secondary market at up to 90 percent off list price. Product is available for even in the most sophisticated and obscure models, and when the gear comes with a warranty that supersedes that of the original manufacturer, customers are usually satisfied with the value. Keeping material out of the e-waste stream by purchasing used equipment rather than new gear is yet another benefit of the secondary market, not just for the customer but for the environment.
One in every dozen computers used worldwide is a "secondary computer," and about 152.5 million used systems were shipped in 2004, according to a study released by Gartner. The research firm predicts that both the home and professional markets for secondary PCs will continue to see growth in the next several years, fueled by better computer performance, longer system life and recycling legislation that gives companies a greater incentive to sell their used machines.
Recent advances in technology, coupled with complex new economic foreign policies abroad, have made developing countries far more likely to accept used hardware as a viable technology option because of the savings such products afford.
The days when businesses could send a product into the marketplace without first considering how it might affect the environment are over. Global recycling and product recovery programs, through which businesses take responsibility for what they make and sell, require little effort on the part of consumers-- and they pay off.
Whether you are an IT manager, a global CEO or just a home PC user, the implications are the same. E-waste is a problem for those who generate it and all of us who are stuck with it. Although society and industry are taking steps in the right direction, a lot more needs to be considered.
Joshua Levitt is managing director of UsedCisco.com.
He can be reached at jlevitt@usedcisco.com.