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In order to help reduce these negative consequences, non-profit organizations in Singapore are committed to creating viable channels for the public to responsibly dispose of their IT equipment. If your company has IT equipment that needs to be disposed of, you can also approach these organizations for assistance. This guide was developed by the Singapore Environmental Council (SEC) to make the process of disposal easier for you and your company. You can also approach SEC for assistance to develop a customized disposal program to suit your company’s needs.
According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), only 6% of IT equipment is disposed of responsibly in Singapore. Most are dumped in landfills, incinerated, or illegally exported overseas to be dumped. IT waste contains hazardous substances such as lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and brominated flame retardants. These can leach into soil and water, posing health risks to people. Toxins can also be released into the air during the recycling and disposal of IT equipment.
Understanding the Importance of Responsible IT Equipment Disposal
In contrast, when unwanted equipment is retired and disposed of responsibly, precious metals and rare earths such as gold, silver, palladium, and yttrium can be smelted, reused, and recovered. With Singapore’s recycling rate for laptops and desktops at an abysmal 6% and the world’s ICT waste growing at a stunning 4% annually, it is even more imperative that the city-state be committed to recovering these valuable elements. Besides their precious metal content, other parts of obsolete electronics such as glass, plastics, and their components are also valuable recyclable materials that are put to good use when recycled.
When unwanted, obsolete, or damaged equipment is responsibly disposed of in Singapore, the materials that make up these items are recovered and processed so that they can contribute to the production of new goods. This fulfillment of a product’s lifecycle is a crucial part of sustainable production and consumption patterns that seek to minimize waste. On the contrary, irresponsible disposal such as dumping IT equipment in the trash makes recovering these recyclable and reusable materials impossible. This results in a multitude of negative environmental impacts, such as improper toxins leaching into the environment, contamination of recyclable materials, and the use of excess, nonrenewable natural resources.
Environmental Impact of Improper Disposal
The by-products of disassembling ordinary CRT monitors are classified as industrial waste. Old-style CRT monitors release large amounts of harmful substances such as tri-lead dioxide and barium oxide, which can severely damage the environment and consequently, human health.
Race and plasma display panels (PDP) solely have parts containing hazardous substances such as mercury, lead, arsenic, and amorphous silica in the x, y, and z-axis directions and are classified as hazardous e-waste. These parts end up in waste disposal sites and are left unattended. Upon the large black monolithic glasses being crushed, airborne dust with hazardous substances becomes the air.
The improper disposal of electronic waste can significantly harm the environment. E-waste contains hazardous substances such as lead, mercury, and cadmium. The improper handling of these harmful chemicals during recycling can leak into the environment, leading to the pollution of the air, water, and soil. This will then cause long-term damage to people’s health, aquatic life, and wildlife, thereby resulting in unnecessary financial and social costs.
Legal and Regulatory Framework in Singapore
In Singapore, the Resource Sustainability Act (RSA) will be extended to add e-waste. With the support of the business group, NEA will establish a system regulating producer behavior.
Not only that, in July 2019, NEA has also announced the Resource Sustainability Act (RSA). The legislation would ensure that producers take better responsibility for the environmental problems of their products. It aims to help Singapore meet long-term sustainable development targets by switching to a zero-waste strategy and plans to continue it from 2020.
The producer’s responsibilities include making available collection points at specified locations for consumers of such products to return their end-of-life products, and ensuring that the products collected are recycled in an environmentally-friendly way.
Legislation: With the effect from 1 July 2006, NEA has made it mandatory for all producers of retail products, including electronic and electrical products such as IT equipment, to provide an end-of-life (EOL) solution for such products.
As a responsible company, recycling your used IT equipment properly is the right thing to do. In Singapore, NEA (National Environment Agency) assumes strong leadership in directing and guiding Singapore along a more sustainable path. NEA has initiated various programs and brought into place regulations targeted at everyone, including local companies like us.
Types of IT Equipment Suitable for Recycling and Disposal
Implied hardcopy control: If a printer or copier is returned for recycling, the hard drive must be controlled and eliminated to non-burnable. Please discuss how to take the necessary measures with the printer and copier service or the Simlim Tower DIY Information Service.
Mainframe MFD Mainframe disk switching facility (PC backup machine): A mainframe is carefully decommissioned and eliminated once the expected fire and recovery values have been minimized by means of logging, software updates, and data disposal.
IT Equipment Key Board: Typically made from materials such as synthetic rubber, glass, and steel, a keyboard is separated from a PC before both are treated separately. While the majority of keyboards contain LED displays, smaller versions with LCD displays can be found in individual printers. Small quantities, meaning about three to four individual units, are also found in MFD units during repair and maintenance.
Inking Printing inks, coming in either toner or ink forms, are not suitable for incineration or landfill. Computer supplies include magnetic media, CDs, and recordable media. When improperly discarded, it can lead to the dispersion of chemical particles that are harmful to the environment and human health. Management of photocopier consumables is regulated through the Singapore Environmental Protection and Management (Hazardous Substance) Regulations.
All electronic equipment, including IT equipment, contains a mix of ferrous and non-ferrous metals and can be recycled. However, due to varying recovery values and recyclability, not all IT equipment is suitable for recycling. Critical to this process is therefore the safe and responsible disposal of chemical contaminants in secure and environmentally-friendly ways.
Computers and Laptops
Through Charity Organizations Your unused computer gear can provide technology access to the disadvantaged in Singapore. You can also pledge your used computer to social agencies supporting low-income families, via local charity organizations such as Computers for Business and Community.
3.1. Computers and Laptops We love our computers and laptops, but they may need to be disposed of when we give them, and their accessories, a new lease of life when they’re no longer needed. There are several options for recycling unwanted computers and laptops in Singapore. You can donate your old machines to the disadvantaged via local charity organizations, refurbish them through recycling programs, or arrange for them to be collected by telecom service providers’ e-waste recycling and disposal in Singapore.
Whether your computer still has plenty of mileage left in it or you’re thinking of getting rid of that dusty old machine in your storeroom, there are options aplenty in Singapore for recycling or refurbishing and donating to the needy. Read on to find out how you can do your part for the environment and society.
Networking Equipment
Networking equipment disposal in Singapore includes not only attached telecommunications systems, which include hubs, switches, routers, bridges, and closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance devices, but also central equipment used to offer transport and service access data to other connected networking apparatus. It is the common central location that allows linked equipment the ability to move information to one another. Some types of network equipment are often referred to as remote units, including communications equipment used to link equipment. They appear to be installed at a different site from the central unit.
Network equipment includes both internal and remote telecommunication tools such as switches, bridges, modems, and closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. They are typically in charge of connecting various pieces of automated devices and moving properties from one destination to another via a network. You are recommended to contact recycling firms or IT vendors to eliminate network equipment properly. Dispose of any small parts when recycling a computer, including its peripherals. Try to keep the pieces unchanged so that they will be available for use as a better donation or, if required, for repair. Consider if parts could be refurbished to allow lower resource consumption instead of buying new products.
Mobile Devices
Upon arrival, we are able to check that the hard drive is not re-installed as physically defective hard drives could be used in other working machines. We then test any working hard drives, working power cables, working accessories, and then deploy equipment with schools. All physically defective hard drives from non-recyclable mobile devices are then forensically destroyed.
Remember, the blue e-waste recycling bag is only one part of the responsible disposal process. When sending your mobile device using our electronic pick-up service, understand that some private recycling companies may hold ISO 9001, ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 certifications, ensuring that the equipment is recycled with minimum risk to the end recycler’s health. Some even offer a free hard drive/data destruction certificate if you have data deletion concerns.
The third option is to place the mobile device into one of nine blue e-waste recycling wrapping bags and then place it alongside the domestic recycling bin for collection by the e-waste recycling national programme. The e-waste recycling bag distribution points can be found on the website under the location ‘Retail Outlets’.
The second option is to ferry the mobile device yourself to designated e-waste bins at certain malls in Singapore.
The first option is to sell your mobile device. There is a second-hand demand for mobile devices and depending on the condition and expected lifespan of the mobile device, selling is viable and a method that aids with the circular economy concept. However, this is only viable with the one or two subsequent generations of smartphones as anything older probably will not fetch close to nil value.
Best Practices for IT Equipment Recycling and Disposal
Some best practices for specific types of IT equipment include completing the IT life cycle by taking advantage of vendor take-back, donation programs, and end-of-life applied discounts. For hard disk drives, try using software to clean data and get them reused. If they are of no use, engage a qualified IT equipment recycler. For printers, copiers, and multifunction devices, adopt functions that help reduce wastage and recycle their consumables. Examples include printing on both sides of paper, using eco-fonts, duplex scanning and copying, and ensuring that ink and toner cartridges are discarded properly. For mobile devices, use them for as long as possible and when discarded, recycle their batteries and electronic waste components. For data center equipment, remove data from the hard disk drives, engage a qualified IT equipment recycler, and check the service contract to ensure appropriate and safe disposal.
The general best practices for IT equipment recycling and disposal include keeping the consumption of IT equipment low, maximizing the usable life of equipment, and recycling or disposing of them responsibly. It ensures that precious resources are conserved and toxic waste does not pollute the environment. “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is not merely a slogan but an important framework for environmental stewardship. While reducing and reusing are more effective and efficient for the conservation of resources, recycling is often the remaining and essential practice before the proper disposal of IT equipment.
Data Security Measures
Data Erasure: If the equipment is soon to be leaving the custody of the organization, a data erasure using the manufacturer’s tool may be the most secure option. Some disposal vendors don’t invest in this software, mostly an oversight.
Data Overwrite: most current equipment can benefit from a single or more complete overwriting of the hard disk. Contrary to popular belief, one overwrite pass is usually sufficient, although sometimes the multiple overwrite could be sent to a company secondee (trainee) from another ISO 27001 certified company to supply the extra degree of assurance to management.
Reformatting: some equipment is so old it can only store an operating system or software applications accessed via a central server or network connection. This is the most common reuse option.
Where logical desensitization is the chosen solution, there are at least three levels:
Some security teams, usually if broader information protection issues are delegated from IT to the organization’s legal team, would like to be present during the desensitization process. This leaves potential skill gaps in the disposal vendors’ teams.
Optionally, organizations’ security teams can use data recovery tools to demonstrate to managements, and then to disposal vendors, that desensitizing is the best option, and vendors may add a surcharge for physical destruction.
Computer leasing companies and data recovery companies may have a financial interest in retaining possession of the IT equipment, including storage media, increasing their motivation to sell or make harm double sure by destroying the data.
It’s important to recognize that organizations can be targeted through their IT equipment disposal regime, and their digital resources – including client records, business plans, product designs, etc. – are only as secure as their IT equipment disposal regime allows.
For security risk mitigation at each stage of data device disposal, the following best practices were suggested:
Physical Disposal Methods
Erasure is another option. Sanitization software to systematically and efficiently overwrite legacy and non-legacy equipment is available, but these must be for the specific type of drives to be used on laptops, PCs, and mainframe servers. Another point to note is that the sanitization operation time can increase with the square of the capacity of the hard drive. That is, the work involved in erasing a 2 TB drive is not 1024 times the work involved in erasing a 2 GB drive, but will actually be a little faster and take approximately 512 times the effort, which can be two orders of magnitude longer. Where previous overwrite patterns may still be recoverable by comparing the signal to noise ratio, an unlikely but not entirely impossible situation, it is possible to take the physical destruction route. Various punching, drilling, grinding, and shredding systems are available for the disposal of data-bearing media.
Physical disposal methods are generally seen as less environmentally-friendly compared to asset remarketing or material reclamation. Mechanical hard drive crushing is one such option. However, this method leaves HDD scrap that may or may not be recoverable and recyclable. One could also run into difficulties if the data-bearing hard disk needs to be closely monitored during destruction. For newer and larger capacity hard disk drives, degaussing is preferred over hard disk crushing. If you degauss, note that the degausser will need to be NSA/CSS/DMS certified if you wish to comply with government data destruction regulations such as US DoD 5220.22-M. If you are only responsible for maintaining company data confidentiality, ensure that there is a procedure in place to ensure the hard disk has indeed been demagnetized and is therefore definitively data-free.
Future trends in responsible disposal indeed point towards minimizing the environmental impact associated with disposal through the implementation of IT equipment recycling programs. Major IT equipment vendors, especially those with a presence in Singapore, can adopt comparable programs here, contributing to the widening of the scope of responsible companies as well as increasing the IT recycling rate. With the increased focus on corporate social responsibility compliance for companies worldwide, partnering with government organizations to adopt innovative and convenient programs such as those based on EPR may be the answer to a cluttered and technologically advanced society.
As we can see, the global IT equipment market continues to grow at an exponential rate, creating a large and ever-increasing disposal problem. Much of the disposed IT equipment today is still treated as general waste and finds its way to landfills. The need for responsible disposal and the benefits of recycling has driven many programs globally that have improved the awareness of responsible disposal among the business population. In addition, the rapid pace of technological advances is making older models obsolete as newer models are being introduced onto the market, making the lifespan of IT equipment negligible in comparison to other equipment.