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Green Computing

The Green Computing campaign

The campaign aims to raise awareness of environmental issues in IT departments and in doing so, to reduce business costs and improve efficiency.

With power costs rocketing and electricity supplies becoming increasingly unpredictable, IT departments need to look at new ways of working.

The campaign centres around a seven point plan designed to help organisations meet their environmental goals, reduce their costs and provide more effecient IT services. 

The charter is a set of guidelines for IT organisations to improve their green credentials and reduce costs:

  1. Find out how much energy your IT systems use and monitor ongoing consumption levels.
  2. Ensure unused equipment is turned off when it is not being used. 
  3. Educate staff to the benefits of saving energy and recycling. 
  4. Establish a code of practice designed to minimise unnecessary printing. 
  5. Identify IT management practices that reduce power consumption. 
  6. When purchasing new IT equipment, choose energy-saving devices that have been manufactured in an environmentally-conscious fashion. 
  7. Dispose of old hardware responsibly; send old PCs to be reconditioned and recycled. 

For further information on any of the points above visit computing.co.uk

Hardware Disposal

One of the major issues within the Green Computing Campaign is educating people on how to dispose of IT hardware responcibly, securely and in a way that reduces the impact on the environment.  On of the best resources on hardware disposal is the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive)

This the European Community directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) which, together with the RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC, became European Law in February 2003, setting collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods.

The directive imposes the responsibility for the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment on the manufacturers of such equipment. Those companies should establish an infrastructure for collecting WEEE, in such a way that "Users of electrical and electronic equipment from private households should have the possibility of returning WEEE at least free of charge". Also, the companies are compelled to use the collected waste in an ecologically-friendly manner, either by ecological disposal or by reuse/refurbishment of the collected WEEE.

For the full directive visit http://www.weeecare.com/index.html

 

 For a directory of local recycling services plese use this link and enter you postcode.