GAO: Feds flunk at recycling computers

The Feds need a crash course in recycling electronic equipment, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. The scene goes like this: Your computer gets old and your station is in line to be "refreshed." "Great," you think to yourself, without even considering what will happen with the old hardware.

While there are programs on the books to recycle old electronics, federal agencies are not stepping up to the plate to make it happen. John Stephenson, GAO's Director of Natural Resources and Environmental Issues, tells Federal News Radio that the federal government is the world's biggest purchaser of electronics in the world, spending $75 billion in 2009.

But according to Stephenson, few federal agencies do a good job of tapping into the government's recycling programs, despite executive orders and mandates to pay attention to recycling. "Over $200 million could be saved and the energy savings resulting from that could be the equivalent of 140,000 homes for a year," he said. "So, it's pretty incredible--just through more efficient use of computers--what you can do."

The GAO report underscored that the problem the federal government is facing in convincing agencies to think "recycling." Federal agencies representing two-thirds of the federal workforce are not participating in recycling programs, and few agencies use the recycling programs' resources as much as they could, the report said.

"Advancing technology has led to increasing sales of new electronic devices," the GAO report said. "With this increase comes the dilemma of managing them at the end of their useful lives."

Stephenson says better policing of recycled goods is essential. While federal agencies give recycled computers to a contractor to recycle, a 2008 study found out that many of them are winding up in Southeast Asia as scrap. "They're being disassembled often by child labor to reclaim precious metals, such as gold and silver, that are in circuit boards," he added

For more on the Feds and recycling:
- check out this Federal News Radio article

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