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JUNE 5, 2003
Dell Smells Gold in Computer Junk Taking several approaches to spur more recycling of old equipment, the PC giant now expects the effort to become "a viable business this year" Dell Computer, the world's No. 1 PC maker, has sold millions of computers since its inception in 1984. And now it's trying to get them back -- at least the older ones. About 250 million computers will become obsolete by 2005, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and most of them contain nonrecyclable materials as well as toxins such as lead. Today, the bulk of aged electronics ends up in landfills, often contaminating water and soil. That's where the first Dell (DELL ) Recycling Tour comes in. Last fall, the outfit began to pick up old gear from consumers and business customers for a fee. That program -- like similar efforts from other companies -- hasn't taken off. So this spring, Dell took its act on the road, accepting old gear for free for a day in various large cities around the country. The effort has proved to be a hit, with thousands of people bringing in tons of old PCs, printers, and other gear -- both Dell and non-Dell products, says Pat Nathan, senior executive for environmental affairs at Dell. (For a tour schedule, see Dell's Web site.) During the May 24 stop in Denver, Dell collected monitors, hard drives, and other electronics from more than 2,000 area residents. Nathan, who recently spoke with BusinessWeek Online reporter Olga Kharif, says Dell's goal isn't merely to protect the environment. She says it's hoping that the program will go into the black as early as this year. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow: Q: How did the idea of the tour come about? A: We started our recycling offer on the Web site, but we weren't getting the level of response that we wanted. So we decided to do some collection events in five states to see if consumers respond. And we were so pleased with participation that we decided to do 10 more events. Q: Why has the tour been so popular with consumers? A: We have an agency that helps us find environmental groups in each area of the tour that we work with. It's very grassroots. It's just fascinating to watch consumer behavior. Take the event that we did in Denver, where people drove for two-and-a-half hours to recycle a monitor when they could've done it [at home] for $15. They spent more than that in time and on gas. But people like free events, and they like the participation portion of it. Q: It wouldn't be practical to do tours everyhwere. How can you spark interest in the home pickup program? A: We brought down pricing [originally $35 to $50] and rebranded the site, which we launched in October, 2002. Still, we're seeing a better response from collection events. My guess is, we're going to have different solutions based on different consumers' preferred ways of recycling. Q: What do you do with the gear you collect? A: If the equipment is old, it's sent to a recycler, where it's broken down into plastics, metal, and glass, sorted, and recycled here in the U.S., though some of the metal may go to a smelter in Canada. If the computer is newer and can be refurbished, we refurbish and test it, and put it back into the community where we did the recycling event. We choose two to three charities per city for these donations. Q: How is your concern with the environment reflected in the design of your hardware? A: We look at a lot of different aspects, everything from reducing the devices' power consumption to marking the plastics that go into them -- so we know which can be recycled, so it's economical to disassemble and recycle them -- to the packaging in our plants. We try to take some environmentally sensitive materials like lead and drive them out of the products. Q: How do you hope to make money out of recycling? A: We hope to be able to develop a cost-effective solution for our customers. By trying these different things, we hope we can come up with a solution that's very affordable for them and that's easy. Obviously, there are valuable materials in the systems themselves that can defray the costs of the recycling. We're trying to see if we can leverage our supply-chain management and the competitive pricing that we get for freight and make this a business. We think we can make it into a viable business this year. Q: Do you expect to see any industrywide efforts in this area? A: We -- the various manufacturers -- are all actively engaged in discussions about various legislative measures, and I have some hopes that we'd be able to come up at least with some floor-level agreements on certain things: That landfilling isn't acceptable, that we all will be accountable for accepting at least our own products. Q: Aside from the tour, how can an individual get rid of their hardware through Dell? A: Consumers can go to www.dell4me.com/recycling. The page shows their options for donating and recycling. They can check in the donations section to see if their equipment is of a viable age so it can be donated. Donation is no charge, and the equipment can be picked up for free. And the donors can often get a tax deduction. And if it can't be donated, they can recycle through us. It costs $15 for 50 pounds, and [we can pick up the gear at the consumer's home]. For our printers, we actually offer the recycling free of charge if they buy a printer from our new product line. Q: What about a business? A: Businesses can go to www.dell.com/assetrecovery. Depending on how many units they have and what they want us to do -- resell them or recycle -- we have different offerings. We'll have some enhancements coming up in this area in the near future.  Edited by Patricia O'Connell Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. 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