Vendors seeing green

It's getting easier to be green. Take the problem of disposing of obsolete or unwanted phones and other telecommunications gear. A decade ago, few people thought much about it. Like outdated computers and other office equipment, it was junk. It went into a dumpster or someone hauled it away. Today that's changing. The recycling of personal computers has had a higher profile - essentially all major manufacturers now have programs to take back old PCs and salvage as much as possible - but there are similar efforts in the telecom and networking field too. They're not all new, either. Nortel Networks Ltd. makes the impressive claim that it has been recovering, re-using and recycling electronic waste in Canada since 1939. The company began similar programs in the U.S. in 1987 and in Europe in 1994, officials say. Other manufacturers and resellers have been salvaging some components from phone equipment for a number of years. This is in part because they are valuable; there is a fair amount of gold in old phone systems, notes Tony Perrotta, president and chief executive of Greentec International Inc., a Cambridge, ON, electronics recycler. But heightening concern about the environment is leading more companies to address the question of keeping used telecommunications equipment - and the hazardous materials it sometimes contains - out of landfills. Mitel Corp. launched an equipment recycling program in the United States last August. The company has had such a program in the United Kingdom for some years due to regulatory requirements, says Vani Naidoo, solutions marketing manager for the environment at Ottawa-based Mitel. Mitel still hasn't launched a similar operation in Canada, but Naidoo says she is researching recyclers who could help it do so. Greentec recycles a lot of telephones, Perrotta says; among other things, the company has a deal with Manitoba Telephone Services Inc. to recycle old cell phones and pagers that high school students collect as part of a school fundraising program. Complete phone systems are rarer than phones and computers, he says, but account for about 10 per cent of Greentec's volume. Perrotta says his company doesn't work directly with phone system manufacturers, but does lots of business with dealers who take back old equipment for recycling when installing new gear. Green grows the industry "It's definitely been growing, as has the whole industry," agrees Scott Hurren, director of business development at Sims Group Recycling Solutions Canada Ltd. in Toronto. Sims does considerable business with equipment manufacturers, Hurren says. "I'm starting to see the market get peppered with examples of companies taking back equipment and recycling," observes Aaron Hay, a research consultant at Info-Tech Research Group in London, ON. It's not always equipment manufactures who do so, Hay says - often it's service providers, especially in the case of cell phones, or it may be dealers and resellers. Manufacturers that take back old equipment for recycling haven't necessarily promoted their programs widely, Hay adds, because recycling costs them money. But as IT departments think more about the full life cycle of the technology they buy, disposal is moving into the limelight. And while the focus has initially been on the most visible equipment - personal computers - it will shift to other electronics, including telecom hardware, once the most obvious areas are addressed. "I think it's a factor that you're going to see in purchase decisions more and more," says Hay. Pretty much everything in old telecom gear is recyclable, Hurren says. The equipment is about 40 per cent steel, with some copper, plastic, and aluminum, as well as small amounts of precious metals. While welcome, the precious metals aren't enough to offset the cost of breaking up old equipment, and Sims charges 45 cents per pound to recycle the machinery. Not all old telecom gear has to be recycled. Last year Cisco Systems Inc. remanufactured over 400,000 units of telecommunications equipment, says Benson Chan, manager of business development and marketing for the Cisco Capital Remarketing business unit. Cisco, with six remanufacturing facilities worldwide, takes back equipment on trade-ins, as well as gear that reaches the end of its lease. Remanufactured equipment appeals to customers with tight budgets and those who need equipment in a hurry when new machines are back-ordered. Customers sometimes get money back on old equipment if it has residual value. If not, Cisco will recycle it at no cost to the customer. Redmond Joyce, senior manager and technical manager on Avaya Inc.'s environmental steering committee, says his company can reuse around 17 per cent of the used equipment it takes back in Europe (North American and worldwide figures aren't available) while most of the rest is recycled, and around one per cent goes into landfills. For its part, Nortel operates four Investment Recovery Centres, in Barrie, ON, Durham, NC, the UK and the Netherlands. Nortel does its best to refurbish and resell used equipment, says David Channing, waste electrical and electronic equipment program manager, and even fairly old gear is useable if replacement parts are available. "We're not really fussy," Channing says. "We'll take back anything." What can't be refurbished is recycled. Worldwide about 3.5 per cent of the material ends up in landfill. Practices are improving To the extent that outdated telecom equipment is junked, it helps if that machinery doesn't include toxic materials. Fortunately, such contaminants are getting rarer in most electronic equipment, thanks largely to tough rules that anyone selling into the European Union must meet, coupled with the fact that most large manufacturers want to sell the same products worldwide. That means that the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) rules, now mandatory in most of Europe, affect what is sold elsewhere as well, because vendors don't want to build separate RoHS-compliant products for Europe. That has had a significant effect on how hazardous old equipment is to the environment, Hay says, since "the materials and substances that they've used in the past have been very toxic." A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency registry called EPEAT recognizes electronic equipment that meets certain standards of environmental friendliness using bronze, silver and gold designations. At present, EPEAT only covers computers and monitors, but it will likely be extended to telecom gear. Basic requirements for computers and monitors call for at least 65 % of the materials to be recyclable, and for several provisions to simplify recycling, such as eliminating paints and coatings not compatible with recycling, designing the products for easy disassembly, and marking components that need special handling. Another obvious way to cut down on the amount of telecom equipment going into landfills is to use it longer. Today, Naidoo says, phones typically have a lifespan of about seven years, and PBXs 10 to 15 years. That's better than personal computers, which are lucky to last five years in most organizations, but extending use-length does not seem high on manufacturers' agendas. Mitel recently took steps in another direction: integrating voice applications with computing and eliminating separate equipment. The company announced a deal with Sun Microsystems Inc. to put Mitel's phone switching technology on Sun's servers and integrate IP telephony functions with SunRay thin clients. That eliminates hardware and cuts down on power consumption, says Stephen Beamish, Mitel's vice-president of business development and strategic alliances. Vendors' efforts to cut energy use are motivated mainly by customers' desire to save on power bills. Efforts to keep equipment out of landfills are more often driven by legislation and public relations - and, sometimes, by customers who want suppliers to help them act responsibly. "I think as time goes on," Nortel's Channing says, "customers will become increasingly aware of end-of life management."

Vendors seeing green

News | 04/24/2008 8:36 pm EDT

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