What Goes Around Comes Around
Case Study: The Positive Environmental Impact of Buying New Green Efficient Electronic Products can be lost if Being Green Disposed Units are handled incorrectly.
The Positive Impact: A University Hospital and Research facility decided to replace their old Computers and Monitors with new state of the art energy efficient and totally recyclable systems. They were able to boast of their energy reduction as well as the fact that the future disposal of the new units would be 100% disposable and recyclable.
The Negative Impact: Many companies take the easy route and hire a computer scrap or recycler to cart away the old and most time obsolete equipment. Cathode Ray Tubes wind up in third world countries, landfills, and dumps. Sensitive data is left unprotected and may not be destroyed, and metals that could be recycled are not and the metals never make it back to being reused.
The Double Positive Impact: This client saw the wisdom in being totally green and a 3PSP expert was given the job of developing a reverse logistics green solution. The number one goal was to give the client the bragging rights to being a Responsible Corporate Citizen on the Purchasing of Green product as well and the Disposal of the retired unit. CRT Tubes were directed to a processor where they were disassembled, plastics were recycled, glass was shredded, and the hazardous materials were extracted. Recycled plastic is reused in the manufacturing of new goods, glass is reused, and the waste is also reused. The computer is also disassembled and sorted into various metals classifications, memory chips, batteries, hard drives, etc.. Plastics and metals are sorted, circuit cards are granulated, batteries are recycled, chips are resold, and hard drives are sanitized of data and either reused or scrapped. Un-renewable energy resources like oil and coal are significantly reduced because raw material can be mixed with recycled, chips can be reused and landfill can be eliminated.
Being Green: This Hospital knew that being green was a responsibility, and not just a trendy thing to do. They took the initiative to buy green and dispose green and to let a 3PSP expert direct the reverse chain of the disposal.