IT directors need to take responsibility for hardware
disposal or face the threat of fines or imprisonment, Gartner has
warned.
The analyst firm used its annual ITxpo conference in Cannes last
week to urge CIOs to take more responsibility for environmental
issues and to drive the green IT agenda, rather than abdicating
¬responsibility to IT suppliers.
“It is illegal to dispose of PCs by shipping them to another
country,” warned principal research analyst Meike Escherich. If
caught, she said IT chiefs could face five-figure fines and up to
two years’ imprisonment.
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive comes
into force next year to address how companies dispose of old
hardware. Gartner estimates that 800 million PCs will be replaced
during the next five years, 64% of which will be fit only for
scrap.
Although new technologies such as multicore processors mean
modern computers can do more work than the machines they replace,
Rakesh Kumar, research vice-president at Gartner, advised IT
directors to use techniques such as server consolidation and
virtualisation to make better use of existing hardware where
possible.
He said this would mean existing hardware could be retained for
longer, which not only brought environmentally benefits, but would
buy time for the IT industry to evolve better methods for disposing
of computers.
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business
www.weeeman.org
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