What do you think of when you think about corporate electronic waste? Most people think of outdated desktops, old or broken laptops, and rooms full of desktop monitors. These electronics pile up in storerooms, IT supply closets, or storage lockers. As they’re bulky and take up valuable space, they’re often the first items to go when a company considers IT asset disposition (ITAD) services.
Computers, both laptops and desktops, and monitors are just a small percentage of the IT assets a company possesses. While larger items get attention during an office clear-out, many other business electronics go ignored. Learn about the most overlooked IT assets and why they shouldn’t sit idle in your plant or office building.
Cables and Adaptors
Cables, cords, and power adaptors or bricks pile up quickly. A charging cable frays with excessive daily use, so it goes into a box with other non-functioning cables. By the end of the year, you have dozens of pounds of tangled Ethernet, HDMI, and USB cables. You have power adapters and bricks adding to the collection.
These cables and plug-ins don’t contain private data, so they don’t end up on IT asset inventory sheets. That doesn’t mean you can ignore them.
Cables contain a lot of aluminum and copper. Both of those materials are recyclable. By recycling them correctly, you reduce the need to mine and refine ore. They’re coated in plastic, usually PVC, which releases microplastics into the air and soil. Those microplastics get into the foods you eat and your own body as you breathe in contaminated air.
Copiers, MFCs, Printers, and Scanners
When your company owns large copiers or has smaller desktop MFCs, printers, or scanners, you don’t often think about the fact that the information printed or scanned stays on the internal hard drive. When you send a fax, print a copy, or scan a document, a copy may be stored internally.
This opens the door to a single machine containing hundreds of SSNs or tax IDs, phone numbers, account numbers, medical histories, or company contracts. Suppose the hard drive isn’t removed and destroyed. That information sits on the device, accessible to anyone with the knowledge to retrieve it.
Networking Equipment
Your office upgraded the network or switched its infrastructure to the cloud. Your old networking gear is forgotten in the process.
These routers and firewalls contain highly sensitive information, such as employee access credentials, cryptographic keys, and configuration files. If you sell old electronics or donate them to a local organization without first destroying the data, someone with the right knowledge can extract the information and use it to breach your network.
Other Peripherals
Printers and scanners are common peripherals, but there are also keyboards, mice, external cameras, and microphones to consider. All contain metals and plastic components that should be recycled.
While most office workers would toss them straight into the trash, some states ban these electronics from landfills. Instead, they need to be recycled to recover the metal and plastic they contain. Failing to recycle them can lead to fines and bad press for your company.
Power Supplies and Battery Backups
Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) keep your company’s server rooms, data closets, and workstations running during a power outage or blackout. They usually sit in out-of-the-way places, making them easy to forget.
These battery backup systems use lead-acid or lithium-ion batteries and shouldn’t be left sitting around. Chemical leaks are just one small issue. Lithium-ion batteries have made the news after triggering dangerous fires. Recycle them as soon as your UPS is no longer used.
Smart Office Equipment
In more modern offices, smart office equipment is everywhere. From smart lightbulbs that turn on with a vocal command to smart speakers used to play music in waiting rooms, these smart devices are often overlooked. When they stop working, they go into boxes or crates and get forgotten.
IoT devices are dangerous because the built-in security is often limited. They store Wi-Fi passwords and LAN tokens. If they’re given away or tossed into the trash, a stranger now has information that could prove damaging.
Plus, they have many metal and plastic parts that don’t belong in landfills. Rechargeable devices also use lithium-ion batteries, which pose a fire risk.
VoIP Phones and Telecom Equipment
Landlines disappeared as VoIP phones took over. Those have faded from view as people embraced applications like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. Desk phones are obsolete, but many businesses simply moved them to storage rooms and forgot about them.
Many of these VoIP phones and other telecom equipment have flash memory that logs phone calls. They have voicemail messages, corporate directories, and configuration data. Some of this is useful to bad players. A factory reset of all equipment is important, but it’s not ideal. Certified ITAD providers ensure that the data is destroyed before the device is recycled.
Understand the Risks of “Ghost” Hardware
When you have unused IT assets, you put your company at risk. Recycling these items as soon as they’re no longer used protects your business from these three risks.
- Data Security: If any device stores passwords and user IDs or contains old databases, you put your employees and customers at risk of a breach. Violating consumer privacy laws and other state and federal regulations can result in fines and potential lawsuits.
- Environmental: Old electronics often contain hazardous heavy metals and chemicals. Old CRTs contain arsenic, cadmium, and lead. Old thermostats or lamps with CFL bulbs contain mercury. Tossing them out is illegal, and you face fines from the EPA and local authorities.
- Financial: The space these old electronics occupy is wasted money. If they’re still listed as assets, you could be paying for active software licenses unnecessarily or facing higher insurance premiums for the replacement value of items you no longer use.
Next Steps: Establish a Comprehensive E-Waste Recycling Strategy
Make sure you don’t forget any IT assets when you’re recycling old equipment. Instead of reacting when you upgrade a department’s equipment, create a solid plan for asset lifecycle management that’s applied consistently. This plan should include the following steps.
Complete an Audit of All Offices
Go through every office at the start of the year. Look at all of the electronics being used. Compare it to the prior year’s list. All electronics need to be accounted for. Add new items and verify the location of items that are no longer in use or have been transferred to another worker.
Create a Company-Wide Disposal Policy
If you don’t already have an electronics disposal policy, create one. State what electronics are covered under the policy. Make sure the list includes forgotten IT assets, such as cables/cords, power adapters, and desk phones. Finally, set the policy for what employees should do when they no longer need or use an electronic device.
Ideally, you want employees to bring items to the IT department to have them logged as unused assets that are ready for ITAD services.
Partner with Certified ITAD Providers
While it may be convenient to give away old electronics to the community or to drop them off at the local waste and recycling facility, that’s not a good idea when it comes to security. Choose a certified ITAD provider.
At a bare minimum, you want a provider holding e-Stewards and R2v3 certifications. It’s better to partner with a provider like ERI that holds several additional certifications guaranteeing transparency, environmental responsibility, ethical treatment of workers, and heightened security practices.
If you want a local electronics recycling organization, check the AI search tool offered by Recycle Nation. In addition to directions, our search tool provides contact information and thousands of listings for every electronic imaginable.
