Reading-based data centre re-use firm SML has warned that as much as 10-20% of a company's IT could be wasted by storing equipment that isn't being used rather than releasing it onto the secondary market.
Following the recent economic downturn, many companies are undergoing consolidation projects to slim down the amount of IT equipment they possess to the amount they actually need.
But Jeremy Parsons, director of marketing at SML told letsrecycle.com that there are still a lot of companies using only about 40% of their equipment on a daily basis. Speed is the key to getting a maximum return on redundant IT systems – as the clock ticks, the value of that equipment drops.
Mr Parsons said: “When businesses see redundant IT, they see it as a problem. It gets put away in store rooms, saved for replacement parts and it is left until it is a problem. An awful lot of companies keep a lot of redundant IT equipment in storage. The fact that this is losing value doesn't occur to them.
“Equipment that isn't being used by these companies should be made available for re-use. Instead of that equipment sitting there, if businesses understand the benefits of recycling, there are opportunities to release cash from that.”
Demand
There is a huge demand in the secondary market for IT at the moment, Mr Parsons said, and the supply of equipment cannot keep up. SML, a UK-based company that deals with data centres from companies across Europe, sees about 2,000 products pass through its facility each month.
As well as providing value for companies looking to offload unnecessary equipment, the kind of re-use that SML is involved in means that the technology “moves downstream” – the kind of equipment that smaller companies could not afford new becomes available to them. And while it is second hand, this does not necessarily mean a drop in quality.
Mr Parsons said: “One of the great things about re-marketed equipment is that it can be more reliable than new. There's a lower dead on arrival rate than with new machines. There is much more demand than supply for this kind of thing.”
SML, part of Selway Moore Ltd, one of the UK's fastest growing companies, aims to “take the hassle out of recycling data centres”, its director of marketing explained. The company will audit IT equipment to give some indication of value and decide on the best course of action for it, test the machines and refurbish where necessary, and then finally it will re-market the equipment.
“There is a choice on what companies want to do with the equipment. For example, with big companies, if the equipment is all released onto the market at once, it can depress the value of that equipment, so we can hold some of it back to get the most value from it,” Mr Parsons said.
Support
As the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive is implemented in the UK next year, bringing in producer responsibility for electrical goods, SML believes that both manufacturers and government here should be doing more to encourage this kind of re-use.
“The way legislation is, very little is about re-use,” Mr Parsons said. “The government can do a great deal more, we'd; certainly like the aspect of re-use better communicated.”
SML handles all brands of data centre, but has only received support for its initiative from one manufacturer, Hewlett Packard, Mr Parsons said.
“We handle all brands,” he said, “and not all of the brands are quite so positive, but HP have been very supportive, they are very pro-re-marketing and providing a great example for the industry.”
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