A GUIDE TO
ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE
COMPUTER PURCHASING
Computers are as common in our offices as telephones and the numbers are growing. Faster, more powerful machines quickly replace obsolete equipment and "upgrade" cycles span only two or three years. Most computer equipment is not designed to be easily recycled. The components are difficult to take apart and the materials, especially plastics, are often unlabeled making recycling difficult. The result is large amounts of electronic junk headed for disposal.
Besides wasting materials, the manufacturing process and disposal of electronic equipment may release pollutants into the air and water and may adversely affect human health and the environment. The costs to replace equipment every two or three years, plus the cost to dispose of these items properly can add up quickly. What looked like a good price for new equipment may carry significant hidden costs.
You can send a message to manufactures and suppliers. Your purchasing decisions can affect the market. Choose manufacturers who practice Product Stewardship by making it their business to produce products that are less toxic, conserve materials, and reduce waste.
This Guide can help you make environmentally friendly choices when you purchase computer equipment. In it you’ll find out:
- what product features can damage the environment
- what alternatives to seek
- where to get details about products and contracts
- who’s doing what among manufacturers, agencies and organizations
Problems and Alternatives
From design to disposal, purchasing choices affect the environment. The lists below identify materials and processes to consider for their environmental impacts, and show how your purchasing specifications can reduce or eliminate those problems. Further on in this Guide, you’ll find web addresses and resources for contract language, standards, and product details.
What’s the most important part of "green purchasing"? It’s taking steps to avoid pollution and waste. Energy efficient equipment cuts polluting emissions from power plants. Providing for equipment at the end of its useful life also prevents pollution and save valuable resources. That’s good business, too: the most efficient system has the least waste. If you want to read only one part of this Guide, see "End-of-Life" Management.
Obsolescence vs. "Upgradability"; End-of-Life Management
What’s the problem?
"Planned obsolescence" and design-for-disposal uses up natural resources and causes waste. Operating systems and software that cannot be upgraded electronically affect both the environment and the user’s budget. Samsung announced "the ultimate throwaway computer", sealed so it cannot be upgraded. What’s the alternative?
- Lease and take-back options (the purchaser buys computing "service" rather than a computer product"). Dell and Gateway have substantial leasing programs. Dell, Hewlett-Packard and some others take back certain used equipment.
- Choose operating systems and software that are readily upgradable.
- Ask for readily upgradable hardware. Toshiba is developing a modular, computer with a rewritable cartridge that can be upgraded electronically at low cost.
- Make sure spare parts and service will be available (defined in "years available after production").
- Check to see that memory is easily expandable. Demand "spare tire" software and licensing, pre-loaded to allow for simple reuse of hardware. (Spare tire software is ‘inflated’ when equipment is decommissioned. The original software-related data are erased.)
Packaging & Shipping
What’s the problem? Computer equipment comes packaged in materials that typically cannot be reused, separated, or recycled. Glued computer parts and multiple-material packaging impede recycling. Materials such as polystyrene are generally made without recycled content and may be non-recyclable. Excessive packaging is wasteful. Paper manuals and disks packaged with each computer often add to the waste. What’s the alternative?
- Ask for several computer units to be packaged together for shipping (called "multi-paks") rather than boxed individually.
- Require recycled-content materials and recyclable packaging.
- Recyclers need to know material types, so require labeling (type of plastic, metal, etc.)
- Require manufacturers or shippers to take back packaging for reuse or recycling. City of Seattle and Boeing computer contracts do this.
- Ask for on-line manuals and pre-installed programs. City of Seattle requires this.
- Require that types and number of materials are minimized and content is labeled.
Toxic Materials
What’s the problem? Manufacturing of computers and component parts typically involves solvents and other substances that must be controlled to reduce pollution and health risks. Cadmium, mercury, lead, and brominated or halogenated compounds do not break down readily in nature, and require special management. (Refer to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition’s Clean Computer Campaign, www.svtc.org for more details about toxic substances related to computer equipment). What’s the alternative?
- Mandate low levels of toxic chemicals of concern. Massachusetts recently awarded points to bidders who, in manufacturing and assembly, avoided CFCs or HCFCs, chlorinated solvents, cadmium, mercury, and chlorinated or brominated flame retardants.
- Use non-halogenated flame retardants or equipment designed usingUse non-halogenated flame using or equipment designed using self-extinguishing base.
- Require take-back provisions for all equipment.
- Use lead-free solder. Available from Matsushita and Sony.
- Explore glass-to-glass recycling to reuse leaded glass in cathode ray tubes (CRTs). Two companies, Envirocycle and Waste Management Asset Recovery, have facilities to do this.
- Use only low-mercury and long-life lamps in flat panel displays.
- Batteries should be removable, rechargeable, and recyclable.
- Label battery type, weight; give instructions for recycling, removal and installation
Other Design and Manufacturing Factors
What’s the problem?
Product design and manufacturing should address air and water pollution and employee health concerns. Besides using toxic substances and "designing-for-disposal," manufacturers often use glues or fasteners that make repair or upgrade impractical. In addition, virgin and non-recyclable materials use up more water, energy, and minerals than recycled materials. What’s the alternative?
- Demand products and parts designed so they can be disassembled with universally available tools; minimize use of fasteners. Compaq and Dell are experimenting with snap-in, snap-out assembly.
- Require readily recyclable metal casings. Sony uses metal rather than plastic housings in some products, eliminating the need for halogenated flame retardants and increasing recyclability.
- Require recycled-content materials. IBM introduced a PC using 100%-recycled plastic in all the plastic parts.
- Use remanufactured and refurbished equipment.
- Choose manufacturers who minimize the toxicity and variety of adhesives, labels, coatings, finishes, fasteners, and metallic paints.
- Require EnergyStar compliance for energy use and sleep modes, active upon delivery and functional within LAN environment. This can save substantially on electricity use and costs, and reduce greenhouse gases related to energy generation. City of Seattle requires Energy Star PCs. Massachusetts required Energy Star activated upon delivery for PC’s, printers, and video monitors https://www.energystar.gov. Researchers at Delft University in Holland are designing a wind up laptop, that operates for one hour upon 20 seconds of winding.
- Require and enable duplex printing mode
- Require electronic or on-line documentation. City of Seattle required no extra copies of manuals or disks.
- Select printers and copiers that use remanufactured toner cartridges and can print on both sides of paper.
- Consider air quality standards for printers. Environment Canada’s standards for desktop printers: ozone concentration must not exceed .04mg/m3; dust concentration must not exceed .24 mg/m3.
- The European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) recommends reporting the values for ozone, VOC, and dust in terms of mg/m and/or mg/hour determined in full operation of the product; and has set up a Task Group to draft a standard.
Written by: The Northwest Product Stewardship Council
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