Dell announces best ever PC recycling result

To co-incide with World Environment Day Dell overnight announced it had recovered more than 102 million pounds (ie 46 million kilograms) of computer equipment worldwide in 2007 -- its most ever in a single year and a 20 percent increase on the previous 12 months.
I say well done all!
I know I've said it before but, having been involved in the issue, I've seen plenty of commitments and good intentions from people on e-waste over the last two years but it was Dell that delivered action.
PC users/buyers, if you're seeing your PC brand of choice now moving to reflect your own values on the environment, you've got Dell to thank for it, particularly those in Australia and New Zealand.

Saab not that green: watchdog

It will be interesting to see if the ACCC is successful with this action (I don't know the facts of the matter of course) but at the very least it is a reminder to organisations of the need be able to substantiate green claims -- and for consumers to not to take them at face-value.
It's tempting and comparatively easy to claim 'green-ness' -- you only have to look at the avalanche of people committing to become carbon neutral in the last 18 months to see that -- but you if haven't done your homework too you're exposing your company's reputation to a disproportionate risk (not to mention misleading people).
My former company, Dell, became the first IT hardware vendor to commit to becoming carbon neutral last year but did so only after having thoroughly understood its carbon footprint and committing to lowering its overall carbon intensity 15 percent by 2012.
(Carbon intensity in this case means the ratio of carbon emissions to company revenue and is, I believe, a more useful measure environmental impact than the volume of emissions alone, since large a company will logically produce more carbon than a small one.)

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Goldilocks and the MacBook Air

Interesting post today on ITWire from Stephen Withers -- I wrote something along the same lines in a post back in December but think Stephen really nailed it with his Goldilocks analogy.
It will be interesting to see whether or not the news interest Apple's new MacBook Air attracted today translates into sales -- comments on the gadget sites like Gizmodo and blogs like TechCrunch have been mixed.

My first impression is the product is not sufficiently different to what's already available from other vendors (including Dell) to make much of a mark -- it's no EeePC in that respect.

I'm also surprised Apple elected to leave out mobile broadband as an option in an ultraportable -- particularly given Steve Jobs' claim during the keynote the ".. the MacBook Air was built to be a wireless machine". Personally, if I was going to use 'the world's thinnest notebook' I'd prefer not to have to drag along a soap-on-a-rope USB 3G modem in order to stay connected (since free WiFi may be common in the US but that's far from the case elsewhere).

Finally, the 'green' design credentials of the product have also received some attention but personally these improvements, while laudable, will seem a little hollow until Apple moves to offer recycling options for consumers and small businesses (beyond the occasional recycling event and participation in the Byteback trial) in Australia. Jobs correctly said the aluminium of the MBA's case is "a highly desirable material by recyclers -– they love aluminium" but it'll be an unrequitted love if these devices end up in landfill at end of life.

Update: Looks like Gizmodo agrees re the Dell XPS M1330.

Update 2: And so does Greenpeace on the MacBook Air.

Update 3: So does ZDNet (on the M1330) -- to me what's most interesting is, a couple of years ago, who'd have thought a Dell would have even been on this comparison.

PC recycling: where to in Australia in 2008?

One of the last things I was able to achieve before leaving Dell at the end of 2007 was to take a small number of journalists to visit the facilities of Dell's recycling supplier, MRI. Some early takes:

• Liam Tung at ZDNet
  
• Kylie Field at Sustainability Matters
  
• Charlie Brewer at news.com.au

Personally, the lasting impression I had from my I visits to MRI is just how much manual work in involved -- you begin to understand why the process of recycling costs more than the value of what is recovered.
Where to in 2008? I'd be both surprised and disappointed if by the end of this year Dell is still the only vendor to offer free recycling options to consumers and small businesses nationally.
There are signs they wont be:
- there's the Victorian Government's Byteback trial, in which 10 major vendors are now participating, lead by the AIIA, including HP (who've been involved since 2006) and Dell.
Unfortunately, at least one major brand does not participate or offer a recycling service of its own (starts with an 'A' and is not headquartered in the US, oh hell, no need to be coy now, it's Acer).
- late last year Toshiba quietly introduced a recycling service for consumers -- not sure why they've not yet done more to tell people about it, after-all a recycling service no-one uses is of little value.
- in 2006 HP produced a glossy document with the NSW Government committing to offer free recycling on HP products sold in the State. Presumably they'll be ready to implement this in 2008.
- IBM launched Project Green mid-year with a research paper that said recycling was the number one green concern among Australian businesses -- presumably they're listening and working on that now.

Gadgets turn green -- people hopefully follow

If December is the time for year-in-review features then January is predictions month and Conrad Walters, the Herald's innovation writer, looked into the crystal ball in ICON today and made one prediction that I sincerely hope will come true in 2008:
"Gadgets turn green
Consumers will become not only conscious of the environmental effects of technology but more demanding in what they buy. They will open their wallets most willingly to products that can quantify their green credentials and gain endorsement from independent sources. Dell, which has aggressively promoted its goal of becoming the world's greenest tech company, will have a head start because of its recycling policy, but other companies will try to match them."
I particularly liked Conrad's tongue-in-cheek ending:
"Stainless-steel guarantee: If none of the above come true, the predictions for 2009 will be written by someone else."
In my opinion, green was the issue of 2007, a fact made all the more surprising by the fact it barely registered with most until late 2006 (co-inciding with the perfect storm of Al Gore's visit to Australia, the local release of An Inconvenient Truth and record low dam levels in most of the countries major cities).
Elsewhere, at ZDNet, Alex Serpo looked at the green year that was (and what a year) but missed what is in my view an importance point. I know I'm biased but I think many in the industry would agree Dell's singular leadership on sustainability generally was a major influence during 2007.
I'm no longer privy to Dell's plans of course but was pleased to see the company take the concept it pioneered at Oracle Open World and ramp it up at CES in Las Vegas last week, including guest bloggers on the Dell blog and the launch of Re-Generation.org. Later this month Dell will also officially open the green technology design competition it announced last year -- another step in its goal of become the greenest IT vendor.
Update: The green design competition is now live.

On leaving Dell

Woke up this morning knowing my days at Dell are behind me rather than in front -- it's a curious feeling and one which will take some getting used to. My initial thoughts are that I'll miss it -- no company is perfect but I can say with all honesty that I loved working at Dell.
Looking back I've been incredibly fortunate since coming into IT in late 2000. I've had the opportunity to work at IBM and Dell, two of the most influential companies in the industry.

Things didn't start out that well. When I first entered the industry I had only a few weeks to get my feet under the desk before the March 2000 Tech Wreck -- and all of a sudden the industry was on the nose.
But I joined IBM in September 2000 -- yes, in time to pick up some tickets to the Olympics -- right around the time the company was really embracing Linux and open source.
Over the next four years I got to talk to many very smart people within IBM (particularly Academy Members like Glenn Wightwick) and hopefully even retained a few fragments of what I learned.
What I learned at Dell was very different. Dell changed my views about what a company could be -- and set my expectations permanently higher.

Asus' Eee PC - the disposable computer?

Adam Turner at The Age wrote an interesting blog today about the Asus Eee PC. Since I work for a competitor I'm not going to comment on the product itself but this point caught my attention.
"Of course at these prices you'd throw it away after 12 months and buy a new one."
If that's the case I hope that Asus will soon live up to its responsibilities and offer Australians a simple, easy to use free recycling service for of those soon to be unwanted Eee PCs.
According to industry analysts IDC, though the company's share of PC sales in Australia is less than two per cent, it still managed to sell 120,000 in the last 12 months and, as yet, does not offer a recycling service to its home PC customers.
At the very least the PC manufacturer should join other brands in the Victorian Government's Byteback program.
Whether the company recognises it or not, the times has passed when a responsible manufacturer can introduce an electronic product without giving thought to the disposal of the device at the end of its life.