Transforming Lives Through Ethical IT Recycling

What happens to your IT equipment when your business no longer has a use for it?

There is no question that technology is now a core element to daily life. Many people nowadays have more than one device, including phones, laptops, tablets and printers.

Currently, there is a rising demand for better and faster technology as businesses want to stay ahead of their competition and to meet the requirements of modern life. The increasing demand, however, has also caused a significant rise in the rate that technology is being made redundant.

One of the challenges faced by modern business is learning how to maximize the productive use of equipment before it is finally consigned to its fate and needs to be replaced or upgraded as it slows down operations. One factor that accelerates this situation is that PCs and Laptops are now commodity items with fierce competition on price. There are even fewer reasons to spend the time, effort and cost in overhauling and repurposing IT equipment to try to make it viable to use again.

Modern cloud technologies make the ability to change to a new computer much more straightforward meaning that there are fewer obstacles to upgrading to a newer and faster system. In the past, usually, the staff would take old office computers home to use for less demanding tasks and to save money. Unfortunately, the generation that has grown up with computers are now much more sophisticated and choosey with the equipment that they keep at home, often these devices are needed to support the latest high-speed internet games and high definition videos.
Sadly, it is a fact that most old IT equipment ends up in landfills; however, several companies will now break down the computers for the bare metal components for just a few pounds.

As an environmentally conscious IT company with an eye on the impact that old IT kit has on the planet, we have been searching for a better alternative to the traditional strip-and-crush approach to recycling.

CIS is pleased to announce that we have teamed up with the charity IT Schools Africa which was founded 15 years ago. IT Schools Africa specialise in providing technology to improve life opportunities for students and local communities in Africa and in the UK. They have collected over 95,000 PC’s and laptops giving access to IT to over 5 million children in Africa.

Together we will be launching a scheme to ethically recycle old working PCs and laptops from businesses and other institutions in Oxfordshire and further afield. This process can involve securely wiping the machine if needed for GDPR compliance, refurbishing, upgrading and loading the machine with a suite of educational software before they are made available to schools and colleges in Africa.

The whole process from start to finish is fully traceable so that organisations who donate can be confident that their old equipment is put to the best use, and so that they can know precisely where the equipment has ended up helping others. It is expected that most IT equipment from UK businesses can be given at least another 5 to 6 years of life in an African school. Finally, when the equipment is no longer usable the schools are encouraged to send the old equipment back to the NGO in each country, who in turn will send it to a recycling company in South Africa.

CIS Ltd will be actively donating its time, resources and staff in working with IT Schools Africa. CIS would like to offer B4 members and Oxfordshire businesses alike a new ethical, cheap and environmentally friendly way to give their old IT kit a fantastic new lease of life.

Please contact us for details of the scheme and to help the lives of school children in Africa with your donations of working PCs, Laptops, monitors and accessories.

Don’t put that PC under the stairs or dump it in a junk room – call CIS and share the benefits of donating equipment to a fantastically worthy cause.