Turning e-waste into student funding
Ever wondered about computer hardware at work, and what happens to it ‘in the afterlife’?
Well, a new agreement assures LJMU’s is not going to landfill, on the contrary, a portion of it will be turned back into useful metals to build new things.
And even better, the money we get for our recycled items, is going towards our Student Hardship Fund!
LJMU’s IT people have signed up with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and DTP who supply all the University’s central server and storage hardware as a partner in the HPE upcycling scheme.
In short, it means kit will be wiped, dismantled and the useful components recycled.
Mark Smith, our Datacentre Manager, based at Exchange Station, visited HPE’s facility as it took delivery of the first five pallets of kit, 85% of which can be repurposed, with much of the remainder then broken down into raw materials, like copper, magnesium and silicon.
He said: “From a sustainability perspective LJMU Energy Manager is really excited as we will be able to provide really granular reports on all of our end of life kit and highlight the amount of Co2 emission savings and also the extracted raw materials for repurposing and their associated environmental savings.
Additionally we will receive a monetary buyback value for the usable kit with funds targeted into the student hardship fund.
Electronic waste has been flagged as the fastest growing category of hazardous solid waste in the world with a UN report estimating that each year 50 million tonnes of e-waste are produced.
