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Client Advisory - Electronic Waste

January 24, 2006

Computers, electronics and information technology is the world's largest and fastest growing industry; and as a consequence, discarded electronic equipment or e-waste, is the fastest growing source of waste in the industrialized world.

E-waste poses two significant challenges. Because most high tech equipment contains toxic chemicals, e-waste is considered hazardous and cannot be routinely discarded in a fashion that ultimately places the material in U.S. landfills. In addition, most computers contain sensitive electronic documents and information, which pose a significant risk if allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

Recent reports have identified a trend of shipping e-waste products to countries in Africa for refurbishment or disposal, even when the material was intended to be recycled. African businesses report that as much as 75% of the computer equipment cannot be refurbished, and is consequently discarded in the same form as received. Obviously this is creating a hazardous waste dilemma in Africa, and the practice also exposes individuals, businesses and government entities to risks associated with sensitive data falling into the wrong hands. Computers shipped to Africa have been found with significant confidential data still intact and retrievable on hard drives. This data can be used for identity theft, business espionage and other forms of damaging acts.

To learn more about the size and scope of this problem, get the full report at http://www.ban.org/BANreports/10-24-05/.

Secure Document Destruction offers a process for cleaning data from hard drives which are scheduled to be discarded. The process is called degaussing and can be performed at your business. For data security purposes, all computer hard drives should be degaussed before they are discarded, even if the disposal entity intends to crush the components and recycle the materials. For more information on computer hard drive degaussing, contact Secure Document Destruction at 563-884-8123.