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GCN Home > 09/22/03 issue

Sensible surplus

By Patricia Daukantas, GCN Staff

White House effort challenges agencies to recycle PCs

The White House Office of the Federal Environmental Executive estimates that more than half of all federal workers have desktop PCs and every week the government disposes of about 10,000 old computers.

Now through the Federal Electronics Chal
Christopher Kent
Image: Henrik G. de Gyor
Until now, the EPA’s Christopher Kent says, no one in government has looked comprehensively at disposal methods for old PCs.
lenge, the tiny office that promotes conservation and recycling wants to reduce the chance that those old PCs will poison someone’s drinking water.

OFEE is seeking 15 agencies to commit to getting rid of their outmoded desktop components in an environmentally benign manner. Eventually, all agencies can sign up for help in modifying their procurement and disposal practices and win national awards for their efforts.

The White House office began as a federal recycling coordination program during the administration of President George H.W. Bush. A few years later, President Bill Clinton renamed it and assigned it more responsibilities.

OFEE reports to both the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“We want to make sure that things are reused or recycled as much as possible, so that it’s easier for procurement officials to do their jobs,” federal environment executive John L. Howard Jr. said.

Desktop computers have a lifecycle of three to four years, said Christopher Kent, an environmental protection specialist with EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.

Agencies often keep equipment in use or storage much longer than that, Kent said, and then they dispose of it through a General Services Administration program. Executive Order 12999, signed by Clinton in 1996, requires agencies to give away excess or surplus computers to schools and nonprofit agencies through the Federal Supply Service.

Some agencies are still getting rid of PCs with 486 or early Pentium processors, but schools increasingly don’t want such old equipment, said Charles Johnson, OFEE’s electronic stewardship program manager.