Heavy Networking 684: What To Do With Your E-Waste?

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a growing problem. By some estimates, 50 to 70 million tons of e-waste is generated every year, and that number is growing. While much of that tonnage is consumer electronics, IT and telecom gear also contribute. When sent to landfills to be buried or burned, e-waste can leach toxic chemicals into soil and air. If you decide to dispose of old gear by reselling it or giving it away, that can also create problems. For instance, the security company ESET recently released a report where they purchased 18 enterprise-grade routers from the Internet, and more than half still had configuration data that hadn’t been wiped and some had information that could be used to track the routers back to the prior owners. On today’s Heavy Networking, we’ll look at options for responsible disposal of IT gear including repurposing it on site, reselling or donating it, and working with e-cycling companies. My guests are Lindsay Hill, a network engineer at Valve; and Steve Puluka, an IP architect at DQE Communications. Sponsor: Paessler You probably don’t think about infrastructure monitoring often, but it’s one of your most important decisions as an IT professional. Get your monitoring hosted in the cloud with Paessler PRTG Hosted Monitor, now with 50% off monthly subscriptions for new customers for the first three months. Go to Prtg.com and use the promo code “packetpushers.” Show Links: Lkhill.com – Lindsay Hill’s blog @northlandboy – Lindsay Hill onTwitter Lindsay Hill on LinkedIn @spuluka – Steve Puluka on Twitter puluka.com/home – Steve Puluka’s blog Steve Puluka on LinkedIn ESET Discovers Corporate Secrets and Data on Recycled Company Routers – ESET Tripling the lifespan of servers: why we retrofitted 14,000 servers – Scaleway Cisco Recycling Programs – Cisco Systems The Challenges of E-Waste Recycling – AIE