Refurbishing for a Better Tomorrow

In the United States, less than 1 percent of the 150 million computers that reach the end of their life annually are donated to nonprofits or schools, according to three reports released by consulting firm Gartner ^* in 2006. The remainder end up in storage, on the commercial market, in landfills, or exported abroad, where they are often dismantled under unsafe conditions.

Despite increasing awareness about the need to stem the growing tide of e-waste worldwide, few people in the United States know where to take machines once they've reached their end of life, and still fewer know about refurbishing programs, which maintain, update, and restore computers so that they can be repurposed or donated.

The fourth annual International Computer Refurbishers' Summit 2007 (ICRS), held in March 2006, in Washington, set out to further the discussion on these issues, and explored the creation of end-of-life and data-security standards, as well as guidelines for supplying computers to developing countries.

This Year's Conference

The next International Refurbishers Summit (ICRS 2008) will be held at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in Toronto Canada on May 5 and 6, 2008. Register for the event online at ICRS's Web site. Registration this year will be $225. TechSoup, PC Rebuilders & Recyclers in Chicago, and Renewed Computer Technology of Canada will be hosting this year’s event. This conference will provide strategic vision and well as practical advice for refurbishers.

The conference will cover "Triple Bottom Line" aspects of electronics refurbishing. There will be presentations on the deepening environmental case for electronics reuse, and the surprising ways that reuse is making social impact for low-income families, students and charities across the globe. It will also offer sessions demonstrating how to make refurbishing cost-effective for you and your recipients. In addition, this year's conference will showcase the extraordinary work of Computers for Schools Canada both domestically and internationally.

According to ICRS 2008 organizer Jim Lynch, Director of TechSoup's Computer Recycling and Reuse Program, the annual conference is an opportunity for refurbishers to network, coordinate efforts, and to achieve clarity on issues and concerns at a time when the electronics recycling movement is gaining real momentum, both nationally and internationally.

"At the [2005] conference, we identified areas of disagreement about standards and gained clarity on what a reputable end-of-life, downstream recycler is," he said. Providing a forum for refurbishers and recyclers to identify points of agreement and contention will help inform national discussions already under way to create electronic recycling standards and accreditation in the United States.

TechSoup is one of seven stakeholder groups participating in these EPA-sponsored 'R2' policy discussions. According to Lynch, "In representing electronics refurbishing and reuse, we're interested in creating a systematic way to direct the flow of five-year-old and newer discarded computers to refurbishment and then on to nonprofits and schools."

The EPA and those participating in its discussions are becoming increasingly aware that doubling the life of electronic equipment whenever possible helps the environment and those who need that equipment, Lynch notes.

Buy Refurbished or New?

In about five hours and at a cost of $75, a single computer refurbishing technician can test and troubleshoot a donated computer, make necessary repairs and upgrades, load an operating system and other software, test the final product, and package it for reuse, according to Pat Furr of Computers for Classrooms.

Refurbishing a computer saves five to 20 times more energy than recycling over its lifetime, writes United Nations University Scientist Eric Williams in the report "Computers and the Environment: Understanding and Managing their Impacts." Moreover, refurbishing provides an inexpensive, useful product for nonprofits, libraries, and schools — a largely under-serviced market.

Other countries have already demonstrated that refurbishing can have an enormous impact. "Computers for Schools Canada is a large and successful nationwide noncommercial computer reuse program that now furnishes twenty-five percent of the computers supplied to Canadian Schools," said Lynch.

Buying a refurbished computer or upgrading an existing system is far more economical, not to mention more environmentally friendly, than purchasing a new system. In an effort to connect nonprofits with refurbished computers, CompuMentor created the Recycled Computer Initiative (RCI), to provide refurbished computer systems at the lowest possible cost to nonprofit organizations in the United States.

Under RCI, corporate partners donate their used computers, which are then refurbished by either a commercial or noncommercial Community Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher (MAR). CompuMentor will then distribute these computers to qualified nonprofits for a low administrative fee on TechSoup Stock. CompuMentor hopes to eventually expand the program to encompass a nationwide — or even international — distribution network of high-quality computers for schools and nonprofits.

With RCI and the MAR program, CompuMentor aims to increase the number of usable PCs available to nonprofits, schools, and low-income families. By reducing the cost of software to refurbishers, the MAR program supplies Microsoft Windows operating systems to PC refurbishers in the United States and Canada (and, as of fall 2006, to a number of countries throughout Central and South America) for a low cost.

"In the past, getting licensed operating systems and other software was the most costly single item in the refurbishment process," said Lynch. "MAR cuts the cost down to $10 a computer. It used to be well over $100."

New Programs Increasing Awareness

With the National Safety Council predicting that between 315 million and 680 million computers will become obsolete within the next few years, why aren't computers donated more often?

In the United States, lack of awareness on where to donate, no coordinated nation-wide supply channels, no corporate donation tax incentives, a lack of inexpensive software to load onto refurbished systems, no legislation promoting electronics reuse, and corporate donor concerns over data security and disposal are all factors preventing organizations from receiving much-needed computers, according to Lynch. Yet the NCRS conference, new programs, and initiatives around the United States are working to change this.

NCRS 2006 also represented the first effort to connect refurbishers with the Electronics Take Back Campaign, a drive to require consumer electronics manufacturers and brand owners to take full responsibility for the full life cycle of their products. In the European Union, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive shifts the burden of disposing electronics equipment from the consumer to the manufacturer, but in the United States, no such laws exist. Nor do restrictions on many of the materials used to create computers. And while the European Union's RoHS Directive requires computer manufacturers selling products in Europe to phase out or reduce the use of six toxins, in the United States, the use of the more than 1,000 chemicals used in computer manufacturing — many of them toxic — go unregulated, largely for economic reasons.

"Computers have very tight profit margins, making it difficult to convince manufacturers to be more environmentally friendly in the manufacturing process," said Lynch.

More alarmingly, many of these toxins are also exported when a computer is recycled or discarded. Despite the efforts of the BAN-organized Basel Convention, which prohibits the transport of hazardous waste from industrialized to developing countries, the export of toxic waste remains endemic. As much as 50 to 80 percent of the electronic waste collected in the United States for recycling is exported to Asia, where unregulated conditions expose workers to toxic fumes and other health threats, according to the Worldwatch Institute.

Refurbishing 2.0

The next NCRS conference is scheduled for March 2007. In the meantime, participants plan to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies to inform, network, and build momentum. The group's year-old, increasingly international refurbishers listserv has recently expanded into a Web site, efurbishers.org, where users can find links to relevant news stories, Web sites, events, and other resources; share photos; and participate in forum discussions.

On the policy level, Lynch and others involved in the refurbishing movement continue to work in conjunction with the EPA to create standards in recycling in the electronics industry.

"We have also developed a policy agenda, in cooperation with refurbishers, for model legislation that includes a role for electronics reuse," said Lynch. On the economic front, groups like Silicon Valley Students Recycling Used Technology (StRUT) are taking the lead in advocating for tax compensation for companies that donate computers.

A Light at the End of the Cathode Ray Tube?

After four years of data-crunching or software-developing, a refurbished computer can help a nonprofit advocate change, expand the opportunities of a family, and propel a classroom into the future, among countless other feats. It is perhaps a sad irony of the electronic age that the very technologies that have become the symbols of progress can leave such a permanent, toxic legacy. Many computers never even get a second chance to fulfill that promise of progress.

* Market Focus: Worldwide Secondary PC Market Sizing Methodology, 2005; July 25, 2005
Thriving Secondary PC Market Puts Old PCs to Good Use; August 23, 2005
Mature Regions Fuel Supply of Used PCs; August 22, 2005