Every year, Australians discard 580,000 tonnes of e-waste. It’s growing three times faster than household rubbish and is projected to increase nearly 30% by 2030.
Recycling initiatives like the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme are working on solutions, giving individuals and small businesses free access to collection services for disposal. However, for bigger organisations looking to sustainably dispose of their equipment, things are a little more complicated.
That’s where our Service Delivery Manager Adam Green and his team come in, working to close the loop between those who have and those who need. They’re helping clients not only dispose of their equipment sustainably, but finding new avenues to give these devices a second life.
There are plenty of reasons companies dispose of hardware that’s still functional to use. Hardware could be running slower than needed, be incompatible with new software, or cost the company more over time in repairs. IT teams might follow hardware refresh cycles to maintain consistency or have policies that prevent them from working with equipment that’s out of warranty.
And while still usable doesn’t always mean fit for business use, Adam says it’s hard to see functional devices ending up in landfill.
“I saw a lot of equipment being thrown out that, apart from being three years old and out of warranty, there was nothing wrong with it,” he says.
“I don’t see the point in throwing out something that’s in perfectly good condition.”
He’s not alone. He says clients are often looking to donate their end-of-first-life devices (a term that refers to the point a device is no longer used by its original owner for its original purpose) but don’t know how.
“One of the biggest challenges for customers with e-waste is how to get it to the next person. They have the devices to donate but don’t know how to take the next step,” he said.
So, how does it work? Here at Truis, we work with clients to get their donated devices sent over to our office and then Adam’s team starts working on processing the devices.
First, they remove all data, which can be done by either shredding the hard drives completely, turning them into “metal confetti”, as Adam calls it, or doing a data wipe and reinstalling the operating system.
“For both options, we provide a certificate of destruction where we record the serial numbers, so the customer knows the data has been destroyed,” he says.
Then, his team assesses the hardware, and if it's usable but just needs a part replaced, like a new battery, they repair it and prepare it for donation.
For the portion of equipment that can’t be donated, his team removes any damaged batteries and places them in a dedicated battery recycling bin and sends the rest out to be recycled.
“We have a company we work with that picks the e-waste up and takes it back to their depot to break it down into recyclable parts,” Adam says.
So, where do the newly serviced devices go? While we have local organisations we support, such as Men’s Sheds and local schools, we also work with bigger organisations that have a wider network.
We started working with GIVIT, an Australian not-for-profit that connects charities and community groups with donations, by chance after they approached us for assistance on an unrelated matter.
“I went out to meet them, we just got to talking and it’s just naturally grown from there,” Adam says.
We donate smaller devices like laptops to GIVIT, which are then given to people in need, such as domestic violence survivors.
“When someone flees a domestic violence situation, they’re told to destroy everything electronic and not take it with them because the devices could have tracking installed. They’re literally starting from scratch,” Adam says.
“That was really hard to think about, even kids having to give up their school laptop.
“Being able to give them a laptop so they can start reconnecting with family or even just access online services…if you can do something to help someone just get back on their feet, why wouldn’t you?”
Any bigger items are donated to LiteHaus International, a Queensland-based non-profit that helps distribute end-of-first-life computers to students across Australia and the Asia Pacific region.
Adam says working with LiteHaus International also means being able to help harder-to-reach clients.
“A company we work with reached out to us from Papua New Guinea last week, they’d done a big office clean up and they had all this kit,” Adam says.
“We got in touch with LiteHaus, because they have people on the ground over there, and they ended up taking three-quarters of the devices to reuse.”
We helped donate more than 400 devices in 2024 and we’re looking to double that figure this year—a goal Adam says is possible as more and more companies start recognising the value in outsourcing this process to companies like us.
“I think the thinking has changed a lot in the IT industry itself that, you know, we don’t need to be throwing things into landfill that could have a perfectly good home,” Adam says.
“I think recycled devices are also starting to creep into the buying decisions of organisations. I think it’ll start to come through more in tender applications, where the customer will want to know how much of the device has been recycled.”
Turning older devices into an opportunity for others starts with a simple step. Get in touch today and find out how our team can guide you in giving your devices a new purpose.