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Donating computers: giving old tech a new lease on life

According to The Global E-waste Monitor 2020, in 2019 the world generated 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste with only 17.4% officially documented as properly collected and recycled¹. A significant amount of e-waste ends up in landfills when it could – and should – be reused, repurposed, recycled or disposed of in more environmentally sound ways.

At Netcompany, one of the ways we are reducing our waste is by either donating our old electronic equipment or disposing of it responsibly. In 2021, our office in Vietnam donated 60% of our old laptops to an IT youth organisation in Ho Chi Minh City. The organisation sent these laptops to children from impoverished families to enable them to learn online during the pandemic, with the remaining laptops donated to IT students. In the Netherlands, we donated laptops to elementary school IKC de Tjalk, and in Poland we donated laptops to students at a Warsaw school during the lockdown. Lastly, in the UK, we donated laptops to Birmingham City Council.

Sometimes it is not possible to donate old equipment, so in those cases we work with third parties who help us to dispose of it responsibly.

In the UK, 100% of our old IT equipment is donated, sustainably recycled or resold at the end of its life. In the Netherlands, any IT equipment we cannot donate, is resold or sustainably recycled – and in Norway, we have an agreement with Greentech for IT-related equipment.

In Denmark, we work with Rossen Recycling – an ISO-14001 certified company that has environmental approval to dispose of our unwanted equipment in a responsible way.

By disposing of unwanted and broken tech equipment responsibly, we are able to reduce our impact on the environment. And by donating computers to schools, organisations, and communities around the world, we’re able to contribute positively to the communities we work in, giving students and citizens the means to access learning.

^[1]The Global E-waste Monitor 2020’