According to Gartner, businesses must consider the disposal costs for IT equipment as a line item when estimating the total cost of ownership of a PC. On average, enterprises selling PCs after three years of ownership receive 3% to 5% of the original equipment price, but will still incur net disposal costs of between $85 and $136 per PC, depending on the disposal method.
"Sale proceeds vary based on the quantity, method, vintage and condition of the equipment being sold. However, an important consideration is that PCs sold after four years have little economic value and still incur disposal costs," said Frances O'Brien, research director for Gartner.
These costs include such matters as disconnecting the computer from the network, backing up and sanitising the hard drives and, in some cases, reloading the operating system, testing the equipment and processing payments. Administrative costs include paperwork, packing, shipping and handling.
But for some businesses the cost is much higher. Incorrect disposal of the equipment can result in a substantial regulatory fine that will not do much for a company's bottom line. UK companies have been let off lightly so far in this regard, but this is going to change.
From no later than August 2005, the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive will become part of UK law, banning the unauthorised dumping of this sort of waste, and setting out proper disposal methods. It is likely that costs, and fines, will increase as a result of this.
There are other hidden costs, exemplified by a recent sale of a Blackberry PDA on eBay. The buyer got more than he bargained for – confidential addresses, phone numbers and e-mails.
"Many enterprises have paid a high price in costs, regulatory fines, bad publicity and even litigation when their PCs turned up in landfills or third-world countries, or when confidential data was recovered from hard drives that had not been properly sanitized," said O'Brien.
"Nowhere is it specified [in US law] that if an enterprise disposes its PCs in an environmentally unsafe manner that a certain amount of money per PC will charged, but some enterprises claim that they have paid as much as $200,000 in fines."