Please! No More Computer Recycling Standards

July 20, 2010 - PRLog -- As usual, this call is stated without due consideration for the standards that already exist or for the "little guys" that will be bypassed by their standard because of the price tag that would undoubtedly be attached to the accreditation.

A bit like the Social Enterprise Kite mark. Any suitable social enterprise can get it provided they can afford the several hundred pounds it costs (money that should be going to create the social value that marks what a social enterprise is).

Even the consultations by the Government for the new charges for the T11 exemption for the refurbishing and reuse of computers ignored the opinions of the small operators. This alone forced most of the "little guys" to go off the radar.

If you are refurbishing a dozen computers for the sole aim of retraining some socially or financially disadvantaged members of our society, what's the point of putting in place an exemption for them and then charging them £870 for the privilege. Makes as much sense as the NHS manager who insisted his TFT screens were shredded "because they had once had confidential data on them".

Now that the Waste Electrical and Electronic Advisory Body (WAB) quango has been axed by the new government, there will probably now be even more calls for standards.

For the "TOP" firms there is always the long established Industry Council for Electronics Recycling (www.ICER.org.uk) accreditation scheme.

However, in Yorkshire and surrounding areas we have the Regional Electronics Initiative (www.REI.org.uk), a network of about 20 computer refurbishers and recyclers, all with Social Value and Aims. They have just passed their 10th anniversary. Members sign up to a voluntary code of practice that is assessed by the members at a future meeting.

There is also a full accreditation scheme where the members premises and documentation are fully audited by 2 of the founder members. All this is done at NO cost to the member.

"I am the Chairman of the REI and I also run a multi award-winning social enterprise Airedale Computer Recycling (www.airedalecomputers.com) which is EA licensed/exempted and is a fully accreditted REI member. We were even ICER Accreditted in 2002",

"...and I for one am happy with the standards already in place, thank you for asking".

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Award winning Social Enterprise Airedale Computers keeps redundant IT equipment out of landfill by using it to retrain long term unemployed and making it available free of charge to local good causes or at low cost to the general public. All our profits go to charity