In this era of ever-evolving technology, businesses are under pressure to be ahead of the curve by constantly updating their IT devices & processes to increase work efficiency. During this process, businesses tend to do improper IT asset disposal of current ones, which leads to an increase in electronic waste laptops & other systems being added to landfills.
What’s the total carbon footprint of a laptop?
On average, a brand-new laptop generates 331 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) during manufacturing. As a result, just three brand-new laptops produce enough carbon dioxide (CO2) to fill a three-bedroom house or roughly 1,000 kilograms.
Most of a laptop’s emissions, which range from 75% to 85% of its total carbon footprint, are caused by the production and materials required to make the motherboard, display, and disk drives.
Each new laptop production demands over 190,000 liters of water and 1,200 kg of sand and mud in addition to the CO2 emissions. Also, the components of a typical laptop that provide electricity and ensure performance usually contain mercury, lead, chromium, and other heavy metals. Most manufacturers also claim that 6-12% of CO2 emissions from laptops are caused by transporting them by air from the manufacturing location to their country of use.
Although a laptop’s energy consumption varies depending on a daily usage, lifespan, and manufacturer, it is estimated that the average carbon footprint of a laptop is 422.5 kg – a sum that includes emissions from manufacturing, shipping, and the first four years of usage.
How can businesses reduce their carbon footprint?
There are many ways for businesses to take the step forward to reduce the carbon footprint of their IT assets, like laptops. Some of the most popular of them are:
Resale
When you have old laptops that your employees are not using, one of the best ways to handle them is by reselling them. By reselling old laptops, you can gain money for things you don’t need and use them to fund new hardware purchases for existing ones.
Moreover, it frees up the dead weight in your storage while protecting the environment by not discarding it. While many businesses directly resell through consumer marketplaces like eBay, it is recommended to go through the proper IT asset disposal channels to ensure complete security of business-sensitive data
Repair
Checking whether a laptop is built with repair and recycling in mind is important to keep things in use longer and out of landfills. The laptop must be repaired or is no longer functional for your business. If you are able to refurbish an item or upgrade the hardware, you may be able to find a use for it in a different department of your organization.
In addition to lowering your company’s carbon footprint, investing in repairs and refurbishing reduces your expenses because mending for reuse is nearly always less expensive than purchasing a new item.
Recycle
If the laptop is in a condition that cannot be repaired or resold, recycling it is the best approach to dispose of it but still be mindful of its carbon footprint.
Apart from being an ethical priority, recycling is also financially beneficial for your business. Even when the laptop isn’t valuable, you can gain from recovering any useful components.
The key to recycling your retired IT assets is to do it safely. You can choose to partner with companies like Recykal that offer ITAD services to ensure the profitable yet sustainable recycling of these assets.
Recykal takes care of the end-to-end recycling process, offering complete data erasure, logistics, storage, compliance, and more.
How Recykal helps with IT asset disposal?
Effective IT asset disposal is a major challenge for businesses as it requires a strong channel for logistics, recycling, and reprocessing such assets.
Recykal helps businesses like yours ensure effective recycling through our ITAD services by taking care of the complete recycling process, from asset assessment and data erasure to complete documentation.
Visit our website today for detailed information on how Recykal can help you.
