eBay forms coalition to cut e-waste
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Online forum will help consumers learn how to recycle old PCs--and potentially keep government regulators at bay.
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You might call it the ultimate full-circle moment: Two guys fed up with paying eBay listing fees are now selling their own alternative to the online auction business &#151; on eBay.
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EBay Inc.  on Tuesday  confirmed it is forming a joint venture with Chinese partner  Tom Online (8282.HK) as the U.S. Web auction giant  switches strategies for tapping the promising China market  where it has so far struggled.
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(InfoWorld) - In late 2000, Union Bank of California concluded that it was time to refresh its desktop PCs every four years, based on findings from a PC Total Cost of Ownership Study. This meant that 200 PCs would have to be retired every month. Unfortunately, there was no strategy in place for the task, or even a designated person or department to manage the systems. "Until then there was no process for disposing of PCs," says Julie LeDuc, IT group purchasing manager at Union Bank. "Each department would do its own thing, either storing them in warehouses, saving them for contingency purposes, or simply disposing of them." With a mandated company policy of environmental friendliness and the rumblings of the Sarbanes-Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley acts, LeDuc knew the company couldn't simply have the machines shipped to the local junkyard where anyone could harvest them for sensitive data. It was time for a corporate asset-recovery strategy to ensure that the machines were retired in a secure and eco-friendly manner. After considering several alternatives, Union Bank chose Intechra, a growing national asset-disposition firm, and continues to enlist its services today. "They handle everything from our PCs to notebooks, printers, servers, monitors, telephones, scanners, and projectors," LeDuc says. After Union Bank does a preliminary disk wipe, Intechra's logistics team comes out to shrink-wrap and pack the equipment onto pallets and ship it all to its facilities, where it performs several subsequent disk wipes and tests everything. Usable PCs are either made available for reuse to Union Bank employees, donated to charity, or refurbished and sold on the market. Unusable equipment is disassembled for whatever usable parts can be sold, and the rest is recycled where possible so the materials can be used in other products. Waking up to e-waste Union Bank's asset-recovery awakening is typical of many larger companies today. "We see a new interest in e-waste recovery, thanks to all the recent debates about climate change and global warming," says IDC Analyst David Daoud. "Large corporations have decided that it's to their interest to tackle environmental e-waste issues and are competing with each other to reduce their environmental footprint." The e-waste problem is big and growing. According to IDC, the U.S. installed base of PCs is expected to grow from 280 million in 2006 to 404 million in 2010, with 237.5 million PCs expected to be retired between 2005 and 2010. In 2006 alone, 30.7 million commercial PCs, or 70 percent of the total commercial installed base, were retired. Yet IDC estimates that only 33 percent of U.S. companies, mostly large enterprises, have made use of the asset disposal industry. In the European Union the number is closer to 40 percent.  That's unfortunate, because the increasing number of retired PCs that end up in landfills results in more toxic pollution. PCs and monitors, especially old ones, contain a multitude of hazardous substances: lead, which can cause brain and kidney damage in children; mercury, which can cause nervous system and kidney damage; as well as cadmium, BFRs (brominated flame retardants), and PVC (polyvinyl chloride), which are known to cause health problems such as cancer, respiratory illness, and reproductive damage and are able to accumulate in the human body and travel long distances through air and water when not disposed of properly. Notably, legislators have been laying down regulations to rein in e-waste, which gives companies further cause to embrace IT asset recovery practices. The European Union has taken the lead on the federal level with its WEEE (The Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) regulations, which require electronic manufacturers to take on the ecologically responsible disposition of the equipment they sell. Further, the laws require companies to eliminate several environmentally hazardous substances. Moreover, a proposed REACH policy (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals) would create an even tougher regulatory framework for chemicals if it is passed. Regulations regarding e-waste disposal have also passed in several states, including California, Washington, Maine, and Maryland, and more are in the works in Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Hand in hand with environmental concerns of e-waste disposal are security and privacy issues. "When we got into this business, companies were spending thousands of dollars on firewalls but giving away their PCs," saysIntechra CEO Chip Slack.  Several federal and state regulations now make it the corporate user's responsibility to protect the privacy of customer data at every stage, including during the disposal process. Laws in more than 20 states mandate that all the affected clients and consumers must be notified if any customer information gets outside of the custody or control of a company. Along with proper environmental disposal of systems, many companies, particularly in the financial and health fields, now have to prove that all sensitive customer or patient data is eradicated according to strict state and federal requirements. What goes around, comes around Asset recovery providers range in the U.S. from the principal system vendors â including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell, and Sun -- to scores of local specialty providers, to an emerging class of regional, national, and global providers, such as Redemtech, Intechra, TechTurn, and NextPhase.  The latter have been on a buying binge, acquiring local providers to expand their reach. In many cases the major system vendors partner with various local and regional providers to broaden their reach as well, as one of the most expensive parts of the disposal process is transport. For example, Leduc claims that Union Bank's recovery costs were reduced by 25 percent when Intechra opened a facility in Phoenix and PCs no longer had to be shipped from California to Columbus. The services provided by the hardware vendors differ in subtle ways. IBM and HP run their asset-recovery services as part of their leasing and financing operations. Indeed, leasing can be a good solution for companies that want as little as possible to do with asset recovery, as it places responsibility for environmentally sound disposal with the vendor rather than the lessor, though the lessor retains responsibility for protecting user data. Both vendors can build asset recovery into the leasing cost. Dell's asset recovery services are part of its managed services offering. HP and IBM will take non-leased equipment and equipment purchased from other vendors, though in HP's case, only as part of an upgrade to the company's hardware. HP will apply what it considers the trade-in value of third-party equipment toward a new hardware purchase. Dell takes third-party equipment as well and will either cut a check for the value or apply the value to a new purchase. Sun takes only its own equipment and does so free of charge, with no value applied to a purchase. Contract arrangements also vary. Most of the vendors work on fee-for-service as well as long-term-contract bases. In some cases, such as with IBM Global Services, disposal can be part of a more comprehensive asset-management offering that helps the customer take inventory and determine appropriate refresh strategies. Vendors then attempt to reap whatever commercial value they can out of the PCs they collect, either by refurbishing and selling them or disassembling them and selling the parts, sometimes through a broker. All will enter into a profit-sharing arrangement with the customer. Dell boasts that 90 percent of the sales profits go to the customer. Intechra gives a 60 percent figure. Other vendors are not so public about their sharing ratio. Obviously, PCs that are refreshed on a regular two-, three-, or even four-year schedule and immediately sent to the vendor are more likely to get some return than PCs are that five years old or more, or those that sit in a corporate warehouse for months or years first. All the vendors claim that they do not ship equipment, either PCs or parts, overseas unless they can verify that it is in working and saleable condition. The younger the PCs, the higher the possibility that recovery will end up being no cost after profit sharing or might even result in an overall return for the customer. All the vendors and most of the larger third-party services provide the customer with serialized reporting on each and every asset, including whether and when it was resold or recycled, and certificates confirming data destruction. In most cases the vendor recommends that the customer do at least one data wipe on its end and/or disable the disk with special utilities or by driving a nail through the hard drive. Then the vendor will transport the equipment to one of its own sites or partner sites and do subsequent wipes, including anywhere from three to seven wipes according to customer and Department of Defense specifications. However, vendors are also open to providing data wipe services on the customer site for an extra fee. IBM and HP have their own recovery and recycling capabilities but also partner with third parties in several locations. Proceed with caution It can be tempting to look at asset recovery as a cost and choose the least-expensive vendor as an asset-recovery partner. However, experts agree that reducing risk should be the primary criterion when devising a strategy: the risk of fines, lawsuits, or damaged reputation. That's why in large enterprises, increasingly, responsibility for asset-recovery has moved beyond the department level and the IT division, to the CXO level -- often to the CIO, CFO, or even CEO. It makes sense for companies to have a centralized recovery strategy so that one department doesn't get the entire organization in trouble with the law or the media. Due diligence means coming up with your company's own set of requirements for asset recovery, based on company philosophy and standards, as well as relevant local, state, and federal regulations, then investigating whether your recovery partner, and that partner's recovery partners, meet those requirements. A global enterprise will obviously have to consider policies and regulations abroad. "You have to ask a provider questions like, 'How do you manage your partners and hold them accountable?' " says Joe Strathmann, Dell's senior manager of worldwide asset recovery. "What is your audit protocol for your partners and your partners' partners?" If the vendor has a high percentage of its own recovery and recycling facilities, that may be a key measure of comfort level. It's also important to do your own checking. "We recommend that you go out and visit the providers and kick the tires," says James O'Grady, director of technology value solutions at HP. Even though Intechra has its own third-party auditor and auditing process, Union Bank does its own periodic audits, mostly for security purposes, to ensure that disks are being wiped properly. Transportation is not only a cost, but a risk as well. It's important to understand what background checks are done on the persons driving the trucks the company uses. And it's worth checking what percentage of e-waste handled by your partner on average ends up as landfill. For example IBM claims that number is .78 percent. Slack claims that Intechra's goal is zero-percent landfill and jokes that there's more waste from the company's lunchroom than from its asset-recovery process. Another aspect to consider is the efforts your PC vendor puts in at the manufacturing end to make its equipment easy to disassemble and recycle. Among other things, this means using as few screws and plastics as possible. Finally, little things can make a big difference. LeDuc was sold simply on the professionalism of the people Intechra sent to its 320 bank branches to pick up equipment, which is important for bank offices with a high public profile. "It shouldn't be like calling a moving company," LeDuc says. Whatever approach your company ends up taking to IT asset recovery, the benefits are clear: Organizations stand to gain peace of mind that the data on their retired systems won't fall into the wrong hands, higher ROI on their hardware investments, and a jumpstart on forthcoming e-waste legislation. The environmental benefits are green icing on the cake.
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(InfoWorld) - Measures to reduce the millions of tons of electronic waste generated each year by manufactures of computers, mobile phones and other consumer electronic products will be the focus of a United Nations-sponsored conference in the capital of Kenya. Delegates from about 120 governments gathered in Nairobi on Monday to begin week-long talks on how to reduce the use of toxic substances, such as lead, cadmium and mercury, found in PCs and cell phones, and to promote programs for recycling and re-using as many components as possible. The U.N. estimates that up to 50 million metric tons of "e-waste" are generated worldwide every year, representing more than 5 percent of all municipal solid waste. In the U.S. alone, as many as 20 million PCs are thrown out every year. A good chunk of that waste ends up in Africa and other developing countries, according to the U.N. Every month, more than 100,000 disregarded computers are entering the Nigerian port of Lagos alone, said U.N. Under-Secretary General Achim Steiner in a speech. Local experts estimate that up to 75 percent of the used PCs, TVs and phones sent from developed countries are unusable and end up in the landfills of developing countries, where the items are often burned, releasing toxic fumes and leaching chemicals. On the table at this week's meeting are proposals to encourage manufacturers to take more responsibility for their products, from the design stage through the supply chain to final disposal. In a speech, Sachiko Kuwabara-Yamamoto, executive secretary of the Basel Convention, which monitors hazardous waste, pointed to a partnership with several mobile phone manufacturers and operators, including Nokia Corp, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB and Vodafone Group PLC to develop programs for recycling and re-using the millions of mobile phones now sold worldwide every year.
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eBay could be a good model for  government-backed online communities,  says a UK think-tank.
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(InfoWorld) - The EIA (Electronic Industries Alliance), a trade group representing manufacturers of tech products, has come up with a recycling agreement supported by both television and computer hardware makers, it said Thursday. The agreement, covering TV sets, computer monitors, desktops, and laptops sold to consumers, is the first e-waste plan supported by a consensus of TV and IT hardware manufacturers, said Matthew Flanigan, the EIA's interim president and CEO. EIA members will use the agreement to push for the U.S. Congress to pass a consistent national e-waste policy, EIA officials said. Five states have passed electronics recycling laws, and all of those laws differ significantly, said Richard Goss, EIA's vice president of environmental affairs. Congress "is our preferred venue for getting this issue resolved," Goss said. "I don't think it serves anyone's interest -- the manufacturers, the retailers, the recyclers, the general public alike -- to have this patchwork of state approaches." Under the EIA plan, retailers of TV sets would collect a recycling fee when the sets are purchased. That fee, not yet determined, could give the entire cost of transport and recycling for televisions. For computer hardware, manufacturers would be required to offer "reasonably convenient" recycling services at no cost to consumers. Several IT hardware makers have already instituted recycling programs, while most TV set makers have not. The TV fee would be temporary to help pay for the recycling of the millions of TV sets already sold, EIA officials said. The EIA will share the agreement with members of Congress interested in e-waste issues. One bill in Congress, introduced in January by Representative Mike Thompson, a California Democrat, would establish a recycling program through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The recycling fee could not be more than $10 per piece of hardware. Several manufacturers praised the agreement. The plan is an "important step forward in achieving industry consensus," Matt Krupnick, public policy counsel for Dell, said in a statement. The agreement would require manufacturers to keep recycling records and to use recyclers that meet environmental management standards. Another part of the agreement calls for manufacturers to meet hazardous materials restrictions established by the European Union's Restriction on Hazardous Substances directive and a similar California statute. It's important for manufacturers marketing products worldwide to have similar requirements in the countries they sell to, Goss said.
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Businesses that have taken control of their electronic waste problems are finding it can pay off in many ways.
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Recycling of consumer electronics may get a boost in the U.S. through a planned legislative mandate supported by HP, Dell and Sony.
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To complement its *other* green coalition SNW Trade organization SNIA, the Storage Networking Industry Association, has formed yet another eco-cause group.â¦
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Online auction house eBay goes the traditional route for the holidays.
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Any organization willing to donate a patent for environmentally friendly technology can join the group.
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Size doesn't matter Even small companies must provide free, environmentally-sound disposal of the electronic equipment they sell, according to new government guidelines (PDF) intended to clarify the WEEE Regulations.â¦
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'Rethink Initiative' hopes to preempt electronic-waste legislation.
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EBay Inc. on Tuesday confirmed it is forming a joint venture with Chinese partner Tom Online as the U.S. Web auction giant switches strategies for tapping the promising China market where it has so far struggled.
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EBay Inc.  said on  Tuesday it is folding its China operations into a new venture  controlled by a local partner as the U.S. Web auction giant  switches strategies for tapping the promising Chinese market  where it has so far struggled.
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(InfoWorld) - A massive computing grid helps eBayÂ make changes to its auction Web site on the fly while maintaining a 99.94 percent up time, said Paul Strong, a distinguished research scientist there. While eBay designed most of its grid infrastructure, the company also wants to participate in standards-setting communities to bring more improvements to computer grid technology, Strong said Tuesday during the GridWorld conference in Washington, D.C. EBay's core business is hosting Web-based auctions, not in creating new grid technologies, he said. "We don't see ourselves as an IT development shop for development tools," he said. By working together on grid standards, participants can help "transitions be less painful," he added. On Monday, the Open Grid Forum standards body officially opened for business, delivering on its commitment made in June to detail its goals during GridWorld. EBay has made great strides in its back-end technology since the late '90s, but the company still wants more improvements, including the ability to change the site's code nearly instantaneously, Strong said. Right now, the company, with more than 15,000 servers in its production environment, distributes new application code to its Web site every two weeks, he said. EBay developers write about 100,000 lines of code each week, and using a traditional grid made up of about 350 Windows, Linux and Solaris computers, the site takes about 20 minutes to update with the new features, Strong said. With 104 million items listed for auction on eBay every day, the company needs to keep the site running while those changes are happening, he added. "We can't afford to take the site down," he said. "It's like changing the engines on a jumbo jet mid-flight." About $1,608 worth of merchandise sells on eBay every second, and a vehicle sells every two minutes on average, Strong said. A trading card sells every six seconds, and a pound of the Korean food kimchi sells every minute. The site has seen huge growth since the late '90s, he noted. Ebay.com has gone from 54 million page views a day in June 1999 to 874 million in December 2005, Strong said. The site sent out 35 million e-mail messages a day in December, compared to 1 million a day in June '99. And the site's up time went from about 97 percent to 99.94 percent in that time period. Still, the company would like more grid functionality, Strong said. EBay would like to get closer to that mythical 99.999 percent up time, he said. "We break almost anything we use," he said. "We're pretty much at the extreme limit of what you can do with off-the-shelf technology." And eBay doesn't want to wait to update the site every two weeks, he added. "We want to be faster; we want to be more agile," he said. "If someone comes up with a cool change that's not that big, I'd like to be able to roll it tomorrow." Improvements in grid computing is where community standards can help, he said. "We believe everyone has something to contribute," he said to the GridWorld audience. "We'd like to share ... with the community." GridWorld is organized by IDG, the parent company of IDG News Service.