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It's a logistical nightmare. Try to balance costs and environmental considerations. The recycling industry has exploded throughout the Western world. With dwindling resources and high raw material prices, we are forced to recycle more, but in the world of IT, that means a lot of effort to recycle defective home computers. Time. We were recently contacted by a company based in India regarding logistical issues related to the recycling of IT equipment. The idea is to transport home computers to a central location for processing. Problem? Balance the cost of recycling computer systems with the cost of shipping old hardware. In the United States, many recycling companies have established "drop-off" services for old or obsolete appliances. This is a great way to cut costs. If you can offset your labor and overhead costs with the cash value of your old computers and the value of their component parts, you'll at least break even. You can then offer the service for free as long as the old device is shipped to you at cost at the consumer's expense. The logistical nightmare begins when you try to restore the computer using internal staff. Driver and vehicle costs can add up quickly and result in negative equity. To offset these costs, recycling companies must charge people who want to get rid of their old devices. Government-run programs use local municipal waste collection points to package old computers, which are then collected by recyclers, but because some computers are miles away from waste collection points urban 400 miles, so travel costs over this distance can add up quickly. Indeed, the costs associated with this collection must be passed on to the government agency that manages the recycling centers. With America being so big, the cost of carbon also increases, because traveling such long distances results in a so-called "carbon footprint" on old computers, even before they are recycled. . This imprint remains with the constituent materials when they are used to making something else. So even before the new product hits stores, it's already creating a pretty large carbon footprint. In the United States and its constituent states, the author believes that computer recycling should be considered on a statewide rather than a national basis. If a recycler is located in New York, its business cannot cross state lines. This way, costs and energy consumption remain low, and the carbon emissions generated by the company remain low.