Ahead of impending EU legislation that will force manufacturers and customers alike to take more responsibility for IT waste -- the industry has begun to wake up to the whole recycling issue.
Dell recently became the latest vendor to beef up the recycling services available to its UK business and consumer customer by extending schemes previously only available in the US.
ZDNet UK spoke with the company’s global sustainable business director Pat Nathan about the potential impact of the EU Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment Directive (WEEE) and who will end-up covering the costs of going green.
Do you think the IT industry has been a bit short-sighted in its approach to the life-cycle of equipment and has been too focused on consuming rather than disposal?
I think it is a very young industry and one that was not thinking as far ahead as it should have. One of the effects of the WEEE directive is to make us think harder about what should go into machines in the first place such as minimising or eliminate things like lead, cadmium, and mercury. We are also looking to make systems easier to recycle by marking the plastic with the type of plastic it is to ease the sorting and recycling process.
Can you give some more examples of what Dell is doing to make its PCs greener?
Things such as making systems smaller, the smaller they are the less fossil fuel it takes to ship them, the less packaging that is required. We are also trying to switch from CRTs to flat panels -- you get rid of the lead that way -- and use fewer screws so that things are easy to disassemble.
What percentage of your machines are you recycling at the moment and where would you like to get to?
It's a great question. Looking at the age of the systems and what our market share was at that point, my best estimates are less than 10 percent. I am confident that it is more than five but less than 10 -- it's a relatively small number. Certainly the survey data we did in the UK points to around 10 percent.
Has the WEEE directive had a big influence on your recycling initiatives or would Dell have taken this approach without legislative pressure?
I definitely think the WEEE directive has had a bearing on all our service decisions. While the directive hasn't been converted into legislation yet, we pretty much know what the end result is going to be, bar ironing out a few details.
Gartner claims that complying with WEEE is going to cost consumers in the long run by adding $60 to the price of European PCs. What estimates have you made internally?
There is an old saying that you measure with a calliper, cut with a chainsaw; I think that might apply in this instance.
I think it is really, really challenging to understand what the costs are going to be at this early stage. How do you calculate your take-up rates to work out those costs? What is going to happen as more people start recycling to the recycling costs? If the volumes of the recycling firms go up by 400 to 500 percent, more than likely you are going to get a more efficient process and that will change the dynamics of recycling.
