Author name: katie

Building a circular economy to deal with our e-waste challenges means embracing a new level of industry-wide transparency.

No company wants to be at the center of a laptop-born data scandal, but the honest truth is that data security breaches do happen, even with the best of intentions. Now just imagine the added struggles of managing, recycling, or disposing of those devices during the pandemic while everyone is untethered and working from home.

Companies that are truly invested in building proper circular processes shouldn’t just rely on recyclers’ certifications. There are steps companies can take to strengthen their processes, instead of assuming that recycling is being handled in the right way.

In the article Why do we need ITAD? Our Future Depends on it, we uncovered how a properly managed IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) program can help save the planet from a steadily growing amount of e-waste. This article will focus on an honorable way corporations can counteract this e-waste problem by extending the life of their PCs and laptops through a computer donation program. 

E-waste is a massive global problem that seems to be growing in severity every year. This trend is expected to continue, with projections showing that by 2030, annual e-waste generation worldwide is likely to increase by approximately 30 percent. With this level of growth, business as usual (i.e. a linear economy) is not an option!

If you’ve been to a cafe in any major city pre-pandemic, with tables occupied by a sea of laptops, then you know that these devices were already essential. Now imagine laptop usage has only increased since 2020, with the pandemic-induced work-from-home lifestyle sending buyers into overdrive, creating laptop shortages that some claim will last into 2022.

At this point, you probably don’t need me to tell you that we have a plastics problem. In the last five years, we’ve sounded the alarm about single-use plastics and the burden their use has placed on the planet.

Electronic waste is becoming the fastest growing solid waste stream in the world, and this poses a serious challenge. The need to properly manage and recycle this waste offers us the opportunity to transform our throwaway culture.

Our economy builds products, sells them, and dumps them, but what happens next? With the passing of time comes the need to adapt, and the global economy is no exception to the rule:

Are you going to try to get past that?! According to a 2015 study by IBM and the Ponemon Institute, the average data breach now costs a total of $6.5 Million or about $217 per lost or stolen record. That’s a new record high, and the trend is definitively on the way up. So what can you do to prevent or (God forbid) recover from a data breach?