A clean, healthy environment and slowing down consumption benefits each of our lives personally and helps to preserve the planet for generations to come.  And in general, we’ve made great strides in the U.S. to ‘go green’ both in our personal lives and in our businesses.

What you might not know is that one of the worst hurdles in ‘going green’ isn’t the recycling of plastic, paper, and aluminum.  It’s the recycling of computer hardware. According to law professional Nancy Jackson in an article published online in October 2008, nearly 85% of electronic waste winds up either in U.S. landfills or is “sent by recyclers to third world dumps.”  Not only is computer hardware not biodegradable, it’s actually considered toxic waste due to its content:  lead, mercury, beryllium, dioxin, and cadmium (each CRT monitor actually contains between 4 and 8 pounds of toxic material).

So with technology racing along and hardware like desktop computers, routers, switchers, even telephony on the cusp of becoming obsolete only a few years after it’s introduced to the market, how can we, as business-owners and consumers, slow the process of IT hardware filling up landfills?

One way, is to purchase refurbished hardware.  The business of providing refurbished, reliable IT hardware is in its infancy, even though many companies have begun to turn to companies that provide solid refurbished hardware like MLCP and others as a way to save money during the recent economic downturn.  While saving money on equipment that has a short shelf life before it marches into obsoleteness makes sound financial sense, it’s also good for the environment.

From an environmental standpoint, supporting these companies who buy used hardware from consumers, refurbish, and resell it, is essentially the same as supporting a car company that has put in the money and effort to lower manufacturing emissions.  We have a choice in which companies we want to build relationships with, so let’s choose the ones that share our vision for a cleaner environment.  By selling our outdated hardware to a reliable company MULTI-LINK Communications Products, we’re ensuring that the old equipment will spend nearly double the time (even up to ten times longer) in someone’s office before it hits the dump.  And with the demand for refurbished equipment going up, demand for new equipment will decline—meaning that overall, less hardware will need to be produced and fewer emissions will be created in their production.

It’s the least we can do for future generations, and with the cost-savings, it’s the least we can do for ourselves as well.