When it comes to recycling e-waste Australians can do a lot more. At the moment we’re recycling just 10 per cent of our e-waste despite the fact it’s possible to recycle up to 95 per cent of our old TVs, computers, phones, copiers, printers, scanners and fax machines.
According to ICT management company Greenbox, e-waste in Australia is contributing unnecessarily to landfill.
For individuals there are council collections and drop off points for disposing of our old technology and devise so they can be recycled.
Large companies with massive fleets of computer, printers and other equipment would seek the services of a company like Greenbox to help manage the life cycle of that technology and the dispose of it in a responsible way when it’s time to do so.
“Australians are amongst the highest users of technology and e-waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste in our country,” states Dan Pritchard, CEO of Greenbox.
“My challenge to the technology sector in Australia and to all ICT decision makers in both the private sector and Government, is to ensure they are making informed decisions with their ICT lifecycle management, and to help Australia stop contributing unnecessarily to landfill.
“Commercially beneficial ICT equipment programs, such as those managed by Greenbox, can divert 100% of used equipment away from landfill and more organisations should be benefiting from them.”
Globally more than 50 million tonnes of e-waste has been produced in 2020 alone.
Of that total global waste, Australia accounts for more than 700,000 tonnes with the equivalent of 1,750 jumbo jets ending up in landfill.
Unfortunately, more than 80 per cent of the world’s e-waste is illegally dumped.
The dangers with e-waste in landfill is that mercury and lead can leak into the environment and cause a health hazard.
Greenbox says it can repurpose 90 per cent of their customers’ equipment and guarantees to divert 100 per cent of e-waste from landfill.
Greenbox can also put in place military-grade protocols to prevent data being breached at disposal. 16 per cent of all data breaches occur at this time.
In fact, Greenbox takes full responsibility for IT asset management and data security for large companies to manage the technology lifecycle.
