With mounds of old computers piling up almost as quickly as regulations on how to dispose of them, getting rid of old PCs has become a big financial burden for many colleges.
But Boston University officials said last week they dispose of computers both safely and economically through an organization called the Institution Recycling Network.
Each year BU gets rid of literally tons of computers, according to Buildings and Grounds senior buyer Mike Lyons, at a cost of less than 10 cents per pound. Last year, the University of Minnesota disposed of computers at 26 cents per pound, according to University of Minnesota officials.
“None of the material is sold offshore,” Lyons said. He said BU safely disposes of all computer equipment through the Institution Recycling Network.
Disposing of computers safely can be very expensive because of the numerous rules regarding their dumping. Regulations established by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection in April of 2000 made the state the first in the nation to ban the disposal of computer monitors and television cathode ray tubes in landfills, which increased the cost of disposing of old computers.
Companies often send computers offshore to be dissembled because of the decreased cost, according to the Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based watchdog group.
But Institution Recycling Network spokesman Dana Draper was quick to point out that the network does not send its old computers to other countries.
“We do not go offshore,” Draper said, referring to the Institution Recycling Network’s vow not to send anything overseas.
The Basel Action Network sent a film crew to China to document people in the town of Guiyu disassembling computers, their website said. The Chronicle of Higher Education first reported on the documentary.
The film, “Exporting Harm,” shows villagers cooking circuit boards to harvest the gold in them, according to the Chronicle. It also shows them smashing open a lead cathode ray tube to get at the copper in a monitor, then dumping it all in an irrigation ditch, according to the Chronicle.
The film crew also tested the nearby ground water and found levels of lead thousands of times higher than World Health Organization standards, the Chronicle reported.
Safely disposing of computers can be expensive specifically because of the toxic material inside, according to Draper.
“Mainframes have a lot of value in their precious metals,” Draper said.
The metal is usually stripped from the computer and recycled to offset the cost of disposing of the computer, Draper said. The monitors are the most expensive part of the computer to dispose of, he added, because of the lead that has to be safely disposed of inside it.
Draper said because of the size of the Institution Recycling Network, it is able to both drive down costs and control how network members’ old computers are disposed of.
“We are able to drive the way things are handled,” Draper said, referring to the institution’s ability to make sure that computers are safely disposed of. The Institution Recycling Network deals with over 100 colleges, universities, hospitals, schools and other private organizations throughout New England, he said.
The network is a middleman that transports computers from institutions to receivers who safely dispose of the computers, Draper said. In addition to that, the institution gives each school a report certifying their computers were safely disposed of domestically.
The Institution Recycling Network has also been able to reduce the cost simply because of the volume it deals with, he said.
Each BU department decides for themselves when to dispose of computers, according to Lyons. After they decide to throw computers away though, Buildings and Grounds picks it up and keeps it until the Institution Recycling Network can take it away.
“We try not to throw away any computers,” said Lev Katz, a consultant analyst at the College of Engineering. Usually they try to donate what they can, Katz said.
Katz said as the cost of buying computers goes down, they will continue to buy more, meaning they will have more to dispose of.
Office of Information Technology director Jim Stone said his department keeps recycling computers within BU until they are “useless.”
The average life of computers at IT is three to five years; after that IT usually dispose of them with Buildings and Grounds, he said. The average number of computers IT disposes of each year is six, Stone said.
Clean Water Action, a national watchdog group, is one of many environmental groups concerned with the unsafe disposal of computer equipment by large organizations such as universities.
“It’s not alleviating the problem at the source, computers are still toxic,” said Clean Water Action campaign organizer Kara Reeve about the recycling of computers.
“Until manufacturers assume financial and physical responsibility they will still create these [toxic] products,” Reeve said. There needs to be a domestic infrastructure for handling the recycling of computers, she said.
Reeve pointed out that Dell, one of the nation’s leading computer manufacturers, charges people for the shipping to return their old computers, making it disadvantageous for people to recycle. In addition to that, Reeve said Dell uses prison labor at five of its six recycling centers.
“Prison labor undermines the development of a legitimate recycling infrastructure,” Reeve said.
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