I'd like to introduce myself--my name is Ilene Aginsky and I'm the new site community manager for the IT@Intel zone on Open Port, Intel's online IT community site. I started out in IT about two years ago and got very interested in the green aspect of IT.
We have had quite a few discussions out here in the community on green versus efficient Greening Data Centers or Make 'em Efficient? and I'm not as concerned by what it is called but rather what we must do to ensure we don't damage the environment.
The issues are not simple and require a balancing act. It is important to look at the picture holistically, from cradle to grave. For example, Intel IT will be refreshing approximately 20,000 servers this year with new servers that will consume less energy and reduce our carbon footprint. This begs the question: what happens to the old equipment and what are we doing to prevent it from ending up in a landfill?
I asked my colleague Robert who is the Secure Data Control Program Manager for IT and he told me that all end-of-life (EOL) servers at Intel follow the same process. We make sure that we secure all the data by removing and sanitizing the hard drives.
Once the data has been sanitized there are three possible paths:
Resale - we prioritize re-sale
Donations - some organizations need servers, even without disks
Scrap - anything deemed worthless to resale or donations is sent to scrap vendors for material reuse and recycling
What does your organization do with old equipment?
Great topic Ilene. I recently read an article that talked about the resale market. Much of the U.S. resale equipment goes overseas. However, a lot of the resales don't get utilized in their original state (i.e. a Server is a server). The PCs/Servers get ripped apart and the metals (copper, ore) gets mined and the rest end up in a landfill. How does Intel ensure that the resale market doesn't transfer U.S. "treasures" overseas just to create another's "trash"?