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Home > Plugged In > Archives > 2008 > July > 15 > Entry
Research firm: Five companies make GRADE for tech disposal
Technology disposal and recycling is growing into a huge business. But the industry is still quite fragmented, and the process different firms use to dispose of a company’s old equipment is far from consistent.
IDC hopes to inject a little more certainty into the process. The technology research firm set up a new certification process to grade the disposal programs offered by U.S. computer makers, scrap companies and recycling/disposal companies. It released the results today.
Five companies earned IDC’s G.R.A.D.E. (Green Recycling and Asset Disposal for the Enterprise) certification: Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM among computer makers; Redemtech and Intechra among firms that focus specifically on technology disposal and recycling.
To compile the study, IDC rated 34 processes at 25 of the country’s largest disposal and recycling firms. It certified the five companies that scored 75 percent or higher on those criteria.
The tech-disposal industry is still very fragmented, but the small, local scrap companies are seeing increased competition from large recycling companies and computer makers.
Meanwhile, pressure has ratcheted up on corporate technology managers, who have to ensure that their company’s data is secure and its equipment is properly disposed of.
Comments
By Danny
July 22, 2008 1:15 PM | Link to this
IDC is a corporation from the IT world that is setting up it’s own set of standards for Recyclers to comply to? WHY? There are already organizations in place that do this; there is the DTSC and there is BAN. The DTSC is cracking down on the Recyclers who are not compliant to the standards they agreed to uphold. Why not let them just do their job instead of making up the next club to join and creating more confusion for the rest of the generators of e-waste. What is more important, being BAN compliant or G.R.A.D.E. certified? How does the public know? And how many different certifications will be enough?