Perhaps there is no more important question in the coming decade than how we handle the increasing amounts of data generated daily around the world. By some estimates, nearly 20% of the data produced by 2025 will be critical to the functioning of everyday life.
The point is that data doesn’t live in a vacuum. How we store data and what we do with the equipment that stores the data once it reaches the end of its useful life are key questions for organizations and authorities everywhere.
Although improvements in storage technology are partially offsetting increases in data generation, the reality remains we are set to burn through more data storage and electronic hardware than ever. According to reports, we are on track to produce 50 million tonnes of ewaste globally in 2018 alone.
HDD AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Experts in electronics manufacturing point to the pivotal role hard disk drives (HDD) can play in the development of “a circular economy.” This involves moving away from the “make, take, dispose” mode of production that has dominated in recent decades toward a supply chain process that puts sustainability at its heart.
Writing in a recent article on Forbes, storage expert Tom Coughlin identifies three major reasons why HDDs are a good candidate for circular treatment: “(1) the demand for data storage is increasing rapidly; (2) data storage demand is increasing significantly faster than increases in HDD storage density, and (3) industry output of HDDs (manufacturing capacity) is not expected to increase significantly, according to industry projections.”
The business case for IT asset recovery in the data center is not only environmental. There are an estimated 19 to 24 million HDDs available for value recovery from data centers in North America, according to Coughlin. Separate analysis from Transparency Market Research projects a near doubling in the size of the global IT asset disposition market between 2015 and 2024. That’s a lot of potential value for extraction.
ASSET RECOVERY FOR HARD DRIVES
Electronic hardware takes many forms but hard disk drives are widely seen as an excellent testing ground for the development of sustainable IT asset recovery practices.
Hard disk drives can play a central role in supporting a circular economy.
The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI), a not-for-profit consortium of approximately 90 leading electronics manufacturers, suppliers, associations, government agencies and universities, published a detailed report last year outlining the case for sustained value recovery in the HDD market.
The report authors outlined the missed opportunity many organizations bump up against when they rush to physically destroy disks that could otherwise be data sanitized with the right level of professional supervision.
“Many fully functioning HDDs are destroyed because of data security concerns, even when the data on the HDDs is of low sensitivity or could easily be erased/sanitized,” the authors wrote. “This significant loss of potential value is caused by a lack of understanding and knowledge of the full capabilities of modern data sanitization methods.”
Some of the industry factors influencing potential value recovery for HDDs include
- marketplace supply and demand
- the incidence of in-warranty disk failures
- increasing unease around vulnerability to data breaches
- development of industry infrastructure supporting the remarketing and recycling of hard disk drives
- the overall appetite of organizations for sustainability-first policies around refresh cycles
Where it is not possible to reuse the hard drive, companies must make every effort to ensure its responsible disposition, the report maintained. This is where the global economics of recycling kick in.
Take the decision around where to manually disassemble hard drives. Experts agree that the manual disassembly of HDDs to recover the precious metals in printed circuit boards (PCBs) is economically viable even in higher-wage societies.
However, manually breaking down the entirety of a hard disk drive only truly makes economic sense in lower-wage countries. For this reason, e-waste recyclers in industrialized nations often ship discarded hardware overseas where labor costs are lower for manual disassembly.
Nonetheless, experts believe automation may eventually help improve economies of scale for full-scale disassembly much nearer to the initial point of disposal.
RECYCLING SMARTLY
There is also the question of what actually happens to the material that is recovered through the recycling process.
Where it is not possible to data wipe and recertify the drive, environmental researchers insist on the benefits of keeping the new function of the recycled material as close as possible to its original use.
In April of this year, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute (CMI) at the Ames Laboratory announced they had developed a new recycling process for converting discarded HDDs, with their relatively high concentration of rare earth elements, into new magnetic material.
Ryan Ott, a member of the CMI research team, said that with an ever-increasing amount of discarded electronics globally, it was important to develop streamlined and environmentally sustainable approaches to the recycling of rare earth elements.
“There are a lot of ways to go about getting the rare-earth elements out of e-waste, and some of them are very effective, but some create unwanted by-products and the recovered elements still need to be incorporated into a new application,” Ott said. “Here we have eliminated as many processing steps as we can, and go straight from the discarded magnet to an end product, which is a new magnet.”
The recycled element is less magnetic than the original but it still has commercial applications and outperforms lower performance ferrite magnets.
SUSTAINABILITY FIRST
In an environment where the fear of data breaches runs high, companies will do well to fully consider options for data sanitization and asset recovery before proceeding to destruction. When destruction of the drive is deemed the best path forward, mitigating the environmental impact should be front of mind.
“Many fully functioning HDDs are destroyed because of data security concerns, even when the data on the HDDs is of low sensitivity or could easily be erased/sanitized. This significant loss of potential value is caused by a lack of understanding and knowledge of the full capabilities of modern data sanitization methods.” – iNEMI
