Computer Equipment Disposal Policy - Do You Have One?
It’s a business fact of life these days that businesses need to have an adequate computer equipment disposal policy. The speed of technological advancement when it comes to computing technology has seen that a good deal of computer equipment becomes obsolete within a 3-4 year cycle. Companies who wish to remain competitive need to adopt the latest software applications and communications applications. This in turn necessitates the purchase of the latest computer hardware and operating systems to ensure that there is adequate computing power to properly run these applications. As a result, nearly all businesses are faced with the regular problem of how to best dispose of their old computer equipment. On the surface, it may appear to be a straightforward problem to solve but there are a number of complex issues that need to be addressed. From a regulatory standpoint, businesses must comply with privacy laws in respect to customers’ and employee’s medical and financial information. Simply disposing of computers without first making sure that this type of information has been destroyed would see a company in breach of these laws. From a financial standpoint, businesses who store old computer equipment are being drained of millions of dollars every year in terms of the storage, insurance and administration costs associated with such a practice. And then when it comes to environmental concerns, old computers contain significant amounts of toxic substances. If they are not disposed of properly (such as being dumped in a landfill) these toxins can leach their way into the earth, air and our groundwater. It is interesting to consider that companies spend millions of dollars every year on firewalling and intrusion prevention – all in the interests of maintaining the security of their data. However those measures can quickly be rendered redundant if those same companies don’t take an equal amount of care when disposing of their obsolete computer equipment. Unless companies properly destroy the hard drives and RAM/ROM chips of those computers which they’re getting rid of, they run the risk of inadvertently leaking proprietary financial data, research-and-development information, or intellectual property; not to mention the non-public financial and medical data on employees and customers, which are required to be kept private by law. There are problems with simply trying to “wipe” the hard drive of an old computer. If the computers are quite old then the utilities simply aren’t available to properly cleanse a hard disk. There is also the issue of cost. It has been estimated that it costs a minimum of $100 to properly wipe just the hard disk of all its data, and even then there are no guarantees. When this is compared with an average cost of $40 to dispose of a computer via an accredited computer recycling firm, the choice becomes quite clear. Doing nothing (i.e. storing old computers) is not really a valid option when it comes to the disposal of old computer equipment and this leaves either donation or certified destruction. Donating is best done via a computer refurbisher rather than directly to the organization to which you wish to donate for reasons that are discussed here. Probably the best option is to have a certified computer disposal company take care of the equipment for you. They will extract any usable materials from the computer equipment and destroy the rest. What is more, they will be able to provide you with a certificate of destruction which guarantees your compliance should your company ever be audited.
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