Digital products contain up to 60 different elements including toxic ones (lead, cadmium, mercury but also PVC, brominated flame retardants...) and rare earth elements (Neodymium, Terbium, Dysprosium, etc.), which pose potential health risks to production workers, recyclers and environmental risks to water supplies near landfills where they are eventually dumped.
Source: IntechOpen
The technologies used to recover those rare earth elements have been improved over time, as they represent a high resale value. Properly recycling them reduce the risks to harm the environment and the human health, and also the need to mine new raw materials.
According to the UN Environment, 80% of a smartphone's carbon footprint occurs during manufacturing, 3% during transportation, and 16% during consumer use. The best way to decrease your electronics footprint is to keep your equipment as long as possible. The same applies for your desktops and laptops. Extend the life of your computer from 2 to 4 years will decrease by 50% its environmental footprint (Ademe Report).
Consider the whole lifespan of your equipments: while they are in your company and their after-life in the 2nd hand market. See above solution for the different lifespan of devices.
Before going any further, try to upcycle your hardware (reclaiming materials for use in new or better products) or any stranded resources (e.g. zombie servers and under-utilised assets). To do so, deploy a light IT Asset Management solution to keep track of your whole fleet and assets.
As a preliminary step, protect your materials: phone cases, covers, screen protectors, adapted computer bags... More than a nice-looking gadget, it's a way to make sure your device will not be easily damaged. To make your device last longer, avoid also extreme temperatures (don't let them near a window under full sun) and frequent charge levels.
Then, before changing any hardware, you should consider two actions:
Some Best Practices for the first step:
The second necessary step is to extend the shelf life of your IT materials (phones, computers, printers...) via leasing and evolutive material (RAM, batteries...).To do so, you have different options:
If you wish to change your equipments, consider their after-life and prefer the following incentives:
Keep in mind that before disassembling, you should conduct an assets audit and see what can be re-used, re-conditioned and what has to be recycled.
3.3 /person
number of connected devices owned by Singaporeans, with Smartphones being the most used device.
(Digital Influence Lab)
190 Kg CO2e
avoided by extending the lifetime of a single computer and monitor from 4 to 6 years.
(University of Edinburgh)
Engineering Good is a Singapore based charity that works to empower inclusivity for disadvantaged communities through sustainable engineering and technology solutions. We focus our efforts on supporting two key groups in the community:
1 – Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) through engineering Assistive Technology
2 – low-income families through digital inclusion initiatives
Computers Against COVID
Collects donated laptops/ devices and refurbish them and give out for free to disadvantaged communities
Remake IT Workshops
Repairing laptops and upcycling laptop parts
ReMakeIT is a workshop series delivered by Engineering Good volunteers that aims to address the problem of e-waste in a creative and practical way. You will learn how to turn e-waste parts into new devices and how you can prolong the life of your laptops. This workshop is free and open to all.
You can give away your old, slow laptop gathering dust at home to RE-PC Singapore donation event. Your laptop can become useful again and create educational opportunities for a less fortunate child.
Oudated laptops are donated to RE-PC during their events several times per year. Laptops are wiped, refurbished and provided with optimized OS for low energy consumption, before being given to homes with deserving children. They have already empowered the children of 105,000 families in Singapore with household incomes below S$1,500.
Reebelo consists of a team of experienced people who have expertise in electronics and second-hand business.
Reebelo buy used electronics from business partners as well as from private individuals for their repair team to renew the electronics and test them, before they put them back on sale on their marketplace.
On top of that, Reebelo takes care of planting a tree for every device that they sell to make the world a greener and a cooler place.
PC Dreams restores second-hand computers, smartphones and other devices to put them back on the market.
To reduce electronic waste, they either refurbish the devices for sale, donate them to charities or recycle them with recycling partners.They also provide other services like logistics or online retail solutions.
Plurium Technologies is an alternative distributor of networking and IT equipment. They help companies to reduce the cost of their infrastructure by optimising the lifecycle of their hardware and by contributing actively to the circular economy.
They offer 2 different services both for companies with extra IT hardware to dispose, and for companies willing to reduce their carbon footprint and cost of ownership:
If you wish to change your equipments, consider first their after-life and prefer the following incentives:
See our solution above "Extend equipments total lifespan: Repair, Keep longer, Find a new usage" for charities and intermediates.
Keep in mind that before disassembling, you should conduct an assets audit and see what can be re-used, re-conditionned and what has to be recycled.
For the hardwares that have to be recycled, do not forget that Electronic waste requires to be segregated from other waste, collected and treated properly, because they contain up to 60 different elements including toxic ones (lead, cadmium, mercury but also PVC, brominated flame retardants...) and rare earth elements (Neodymium, Terbium, Dysprosium, etc.).
Source: IntechOpen
The technologies used to recover those rare earth elements have been improved over time, as they represent a high resale value. Recycling would reduce the risks to harm the environment and the human health, and also the need to mine new raw materials.
You can contract directly with a specialised recycler to dispose of your equipment or bring it back to your suppliers: under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) on e-waste, suppliers of electronic goods must take back old products, and send them to a licensed recycler.
You may see here details of some e-recycling companies in Singapore.
You have personal e-waste to discard? Here is a list of all collection points available in Singapore.
60,000 tonnes
of e-waste generated in SG per year, equivalent to discarding ~70 mobile phones per person! (Towards Zero Waste)
19,9kg
annual e-waste generated per capita in Singapore. (Global ewaste)
Find the recycling plan relevant to your equipment:
- Dell
- HP
- HP Planet Partners Program
- Canon
- Epson
You may see here details of some e-recycling companies in Singapore.
For individuals, here is a list of all collection points available in Singapore.
Since July 1st 2021, NEA appointed Alba as E-waste PRS operator. PRS stands for : Producer Responsiblity Schemes. The ALBA Group, formed in 1968, has been operating such Producer Responsibility Schemes in countries such as Germany and Hong Kong. Please find here more information about this scheme. For all regulated e-waste, with a volume above 1 m3, you can arrange for free collection by Alba E-Waste.
Safe. Secure. Stewardship.
We offer e-waste recycling and data sanitization services to help clients dispose of them responsibly while keeping their data safe.
For e-waste recycling, our focus is on laptops, PC, servers, mobile and other ICT equipment.
We also offer secured consoles, paper shredding for confidential paper waste.
Metalo International has 10 years of experience in the electronic waste industry in Singapore.
They manage collection and trading of ferrous scrap metals, electrical components, electronics and other precious metals scrap. Besides, they also provide services to dismantle and dispose computer & other IT hardware and accessories (laptops, printers, monitors, used networking equipments, servers, etc.)
They have their own facilities to handle electronic waste or export to Thailand and Japan for refinery in an ethical way.
For individuals, they partner with Shell stations, to provide e-waste collection points for small devices. Click here to find one near your home.
Plurium Technologies is an alternative distributor of networking and IT equipment. They help companies to reduce the cost of their infrastructure by optimising the lifecycle of their hardware and by contributing actively to the circular economy.
They offer 2 different services both for companies with extra IT hardware to dispose, and for companies willing to reduce their carbon footprint and cost of ownership:
TES is a trusted leader for technology deployment, recovery, remarketing, and recycling since 2005.
They provide IT Lifecycle Services, commissioning, deployment, retirement of Information Technology (IT) assets, refurbishing and remarketing of used technology assets to maximize cash recovery potential.
In March 2021, they opened a facility to recycle Lithium-ion batteries in Singapore, with a daily recycling capacity of up to 14 tonnes / day.
The « green journey » may feel overwhelming sometimes, but you are not alone.
Our Buddies have tried, succeeded, failed to implement change in their companies. They share their experience so you can learn, take shortcuts, get inspired and ask questions.
Everybody can become a Buddy and give back to the community; if you are keen, get in touch with us.
I started my career as a mechanical engineer for 5 years and joined TayPaper Recycling in 2018. Tay Paper Recycling has grown from an informal scrap dealer to now a leading paper focused recycling company in Singapore. On top of just recycling, we also offer confidential data disposal services to help clients comply with PDPA, GDPR and recycle at the same time. I am now working at KGS, an e-waste and data sanitization company.
I am Thibaut, French bald since 26 & bold since forever! Right now, I am a 1st time entrepreneur in the making.
I come from an IT & software agency background so deeply into B2B and old-fashioned processes. I came to realize that sustainability cannot be only about consumers and half-measures. I also realized IT Sustainability was much underrated and not understood by most companies. It came quite as a surprise for me since I always considered IT Sustainability as one of the best ways to merge both ROI & Sustainability to make the latter sound acceptable, actionable, and realistic. Having seen that, I wanted to make a change in my own way.
My dedication came from the desire to be able to look my future kids in the eye and tell them that I tried to make the world a better place.
I am also drawn to uncommon & less popular causes, which is why e-waste caught my attention. While it’s not as “buzzy” as plastic waste or consumer recycling, it has the potential to have a greater impact, especially in Asia.
Founder and Director of the consulting business Zero Waste City, Rémi provides engineering consulting services to large commercial and industrial facilities on waste management, energy efficiency, and packaging design.
He has gained a strong experience as a consultant covering a wide range of industries and technologies in New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore.
He is a certified TRUE Advisor (Total Resource Use Efficiency) by the U.S. Green Building Council Inc. This certification recognised his knowledge in Zero Waste programs and his ability to support businesses to achieve the TRUE Zero Waste certification.
I have been working in Asia for the past 12 years (Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore since 2014) within the digital and technology space.
I have founded and run several companies in different sectors such as IT Consulting, Education, and the F&B business.
I am passionate about how to use technology as a force for good.
Virgile is an academic researcher who works for the CNRS (France) and the National University of Singapore. He heads an international collaborative lab between Singapore and France at the mechanobiology institute.
He is also in charge of the transition towards more sustainable practices in the lab and in the institute. He has already implemented various actions covering energy efficiency, consumables usage reduction, waste management...