Dell to Recycle Old Hardware for Free

DALLAS: Dell, the world’s leading producer of PCs, announced on Wednesday that it would offer users of its computers the opportunity to recycle their old hardware for free, regardless of whether they plan to purchase a new Dell computer.

“We don’t think the consumer should have to pay for the responsible retirement of used computer equipment,” Dell said.

The free recycling program is already available to Dell customers in Europe and it will be offered in the United States by September and the rest of the world by November.

Dell is the latest computer firm to announce extensions of its recycling program. In May, Apple Computer made its recycling program free to people who buy a new Mac, regardless of their previous computers’ brands. Hewlett-Packard also said this week that it will run a number of recycling drives this summer in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Oregon.

Since 2004, Dell customers have had the option of recycling their old computers through the company, but they had to purchase a new Dell system first or pay $ 10 per box of old hardware, as long as the boxes weighed less than 50 pounds each.

Under this new plan, people looking to recycle old Dell products need to only visit the company’s site, enter the appropriate serial number from the old hardware, pack the item in a box and schedule a time for it to be picked up.

The boxes will then be sent to one of Dell’s recycling facilities in the United States, instead of going to a landfill, where most hardware that is improperly discarded eventually ends up.

According to Dell representatives, individual customers are responsible for erasing, or “wiping” any sensitive or personal data on their machines before they send the hardware off to be recycled.

“Dell is setting the standard for the industry with this new policy,” said Kate Krebs, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition, who joined Dell in making the announcement.