Apathy, Fear, Suspicion and the SME

Most people work hard and have busy days. Managers and business owners have a lot of things to think about, a lot of rules and regulations to consider, and it all takes time. That is why recycling and the idea of sustainable business is not as high on the agenda as we would like it to be.

EReco sits in a sector fraught with risks, regulations and rules, but the biggest feeling I get from the majority of SME’s I talk to is a strange mixture of apathy, fear and suspicion.

Let me take those three emotional responses in reverse order.

People are suspicious of someone taking away their old IT equipment purely because they suspect that they are missing out on something. It’s not so bad with old wires, keyboards and the like, because they did not cost a lot in the first place and they have been well used and abused, and possibly don't fit the replacement kit which in any case come with new wires etc, but when it comes to desktops, laptops, servers and stuff, the cost kicks in. Remember, this is the man who has just paid to replace this stuff. He knows what it cost him down to the last penny. And even if that pile in the corner is all now redundant, he has this nagging voice in his head that tells him he is giving away money. It makes him reluctant to let go.

Fear is there too. He is no fool. He knows about hard drives, or at least he thinks he does. He does not think there is anything bad on the old machines, he may even have checked, and he does not think any criminal mastermind would be that interested in his old files anyway, but there is a nagging doubt there. He is not really sure what he should do, so he does nothing much at all, except deleting everything he can see.

Which brings me to apathy. Because this is not one of life’s bigger decisions. Not in the great scheme of things. This is redundant kit. If you have bought replacements and you have put the old stuff in a dark corner somewhere whilst your mild fears and suspicions fester, you cannot really be bothered to chase the solution too far. There is no problem hanging on to IT rubbish. It is not decomposing. So unless you need the storage space back, keeping it is relatively risk-free. It is actually easier to do nothing at all.

I absolutely guarantee that if you root around in any business premises you will find a bit of redundant kit somewhere. Damn it, most family homes are the same. I have a Virgin Media box they just left with me when I upgraded to TiVo. It has been at the bottom of my wardrobe for two years for heaven’s sake. And I could just drop that down the dump, for free.

There are thousands of tons of WEEE we could be recycling right now sitting there doing nothing other than take up space. And that is quite important, don’t you think? The idea that our electrical goods can be broken down at worst and reused to make something else is an incredibly good one, but far too often the good message gets lost in the reality of the situation, and that causes fear, suspicion and apathy.

So if you are a slightly nervous, suspicious sort of person who hasn’t summoned the energy to do the right thing with that pile of rubbish in the storeroom, it’s time to buck up. Call me (there are other IT recycling businesses out there, if you really must, but hey, we’ve come this far together, give a guy a break!) and I will sort it for you. It doesn’t hurt, you might get a few quid ahead at the end of the process and you will be doing something good for once.

Come on, you know it makes sense.

http://www.ereco.co.uk

What is really important here?

Being seen to be environmentally friendly is a corporate must these days. Every website is full of the various initiatives most companies support and if they can spin it into good news, the trade mags and local papers happily print the stories. On the other side of the coin, causing any pollution or mess has become a PR disaster...just ask the guys at BP.

However, deep down in the corporate mindset, this is mostly a sham of course. Profit for sanity recycle for the cameras is the reality. If it costs, most companies will look for some wriggle room and try to minimise the pain.

And so they should. Any business manager who does not try to reduce costs is not doing his job properly for his shareholders. Businesses really should make profit. That is what creates job and contributes to the well-being of us all. Money makes the world go round, as they say.

Sitting here in the ‘where there is muck there is brass’ sector, the wriggle room is provided by less than satisfactory services. Offering free collections gives the lazy manager a chance to salve his or her conscience about ‘doing the right thing’ whilst not spending so much as a penny.

The fact is that the majority of people in this country pay lip service to the environment. In fact most of us do, some of the time. Me included. Recycling will take time to become ingrained in us, and our kids will no doubt put us to shame in that regard. But in the case of electrical equipment, I am not sure many people understand the consequences of our actions.

Keeping scrap out of landfill is a no brainer. Any sane individual has to be able to see that burying our waste is stupid, especially if it includes harmful substances. So why would those self same individuals condone sending our WEEE to Africa, to let bare-foot children throw it all in acid baths and bury our problems somewhere else?

And yes, anyone not choosing a reputable IT recycling partner is condoning that by default.

Quite apart from the laws being ignored and the corners cut, you are abusing a third world country for a very small corporate gain.

So my plea to each and every one of you is make a difference. I know you have to keep a lid on costs but check out your recycling partners. Protect your data and then focus on the environment. Where is that kit going to end up?

That is far more important than a few quid.

Acid Baths Come Free

Here in eReco land we have taken a strong position against the illegal export of WEEE to countries such as Ghana. If you read back through previous blog posts you will see a lot of angst but does it make a difference? Does anyone give a flying fortress?

Then someone followed us on Twitter, @Africaewaste to be precise, and I had a good look at their website here to see what they were all about. I urge you to go and take a look and read their newsletters, especially the one from October 2014.

And this is South Africa. I am not an expert on Africa by any means but as I understand it South Africa is one of the wealthier countries, and one of the more progressive. It makes you wince. I read the story of acid baths being used to separate metal and thought of kids doing the work for pennies and getting sick and wondered how many of those machines had been donated to a ‘charity’ or collected by a free service in the UK?

Because this is the ultimate price we are paying for all those free collections. Ok, let’s be reasonable here, not all of them. Some of them must be making money by other means than dumping on Africa but I have to tell you I struggle to see how, unless they are cutting corners somewhere.

Bob Geldof embarrassed us all with the original Live Aid. His ‘give us your fecking money’ approach to fundraising certainly upset a few applecart’s but as he said, kids were dying. Well kids are still dying and we are all complicit in it.

I talked to a prospect this morning. Nice lady. She explained that her IT equipment all went to a charity. I began to ask some questions, she began to hum and ha. She did not know what they did with the equipment. She was not sure how they removed her data or what paperwork she got, but it was for a charity, so it must be ok?

In short, I was banging my commercial head against a brick wall. Mention the word charity and we all want to jump into a bath of baked beans or run a marathon in a bunny suit. Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse used to do sketches about it...everything is fine as long as it is for charity.

Well in this case it isn’t. To paraphrase what Sir Bob might say, it’s a fecking disgrace. Not only are far too many businesses and organisations risking a serious data breach but they are also aiding the exploitation of third world countries. Oxfam are running TV campaigns about children dying in the Sudan at the moment, and yet people are donating their PC’s to Africa? They need food, they need clean water, they need medicine...they do not need a Facebook page.

I do not have all the figures. This is a blog not Panorama. I believe 190k tons of UK WEEE ends up in Ghana every year. Africa is a big place and there must lots of directions things can enter from, so it must be hard to ever get a true picture. But can we not apply a little commonsense here?

Yes, these collections are free. But ask yourself how and why? Even if it is a charity, they have costs to cover before they even make any money for their particular cause. How can they keep you compliant for no charge? What is going to happen to the data? Where is the equipment going to end up?

Maybe you don’t care? Maybe paying £50 to get rid of that rubbish in the store cupboard is too rich for your palate? Free sounds so much better...even if someone else pays a heavy price? Well just think about that acid bath, just think about the people who are forced to scrape a living dealing with your waste. Just think about 190k tons every year in Ghana.

I clearly want you to use us to recycle your WEEE. I admit our commercial interest, but we are not the only ones trying to do things properly. Use someone who is. Please. People are being conned and misled and the planet, and its people, our brothers and sisters, are suffering badly as a result. And it’s such a small insignificant thing.

Please let’s stop being blasé. Let’s start being truly responsible. Let’s forget about what we paid for that shiny new laptop 4 years ago and think about it buried in Africa, or bubbling away in an acid bath. Responsible recycling doesn’t cost a fortune, but only you can make sure that it does not cost the Earth.

Rocket Science

Beware cheaper alternatives. Oh yes, we all like a bargain but in the end it all comes down to quality doesn’t it? A bargain is not a bargain if it doesn’t work for very long. There is no saving if Genghis Khan arrives at your door, hordes behind him, having found your customers bank details for sale on EBay. And that is what this is about, remember. Data security. Your legal obligations not to put your data at risk. And the risks get bigger every day.

I used to sell roof tiles. We gave a 100 year guarantee. Our competitors stopped at fifty. Guarantees were therefore not a huge USP, because fifty years is an awfully long time to start with, another fifty is just unimaginable. But we were also more expensive than everyone else. Go figure. Quality costs.

Data security is not rocket science. We can make it sound like that if you like, with enough jargon to make your eyes water, but what we do at the disposals end of the business is really quite simple. I am going to try and explain it simply too.

The law...the data protection act...says that you, as owner of your business (or organisation) have a duty of care when it comes to protecting your data, because your company data is likely to contain information about other people – your customers, patients, pupils or whatever you have. You are free to give your own private information away if you like, no one will be too bothered about that of course, but if you expose anyone else’s confidential information you are for the high jump, or a large fine.

So if you want to get rid of something that has any data on it, you need to protect it with auditable. That something can be a computer, a laptop or a server, but it can also be a printer, a scanner, a fax machine, a tablet or a Smartphone. If you give one of those away without erasing the data from the device memory, destroying the hard disk or shredding it, you are putting your data at risk and have thus failed in your duty of care.

Now most people get a company like eReco to take away their old kit. There are about 800 such companies in the UK, some of which are charities. Like any other sector, some are great (me sir, we are, honest!) and some not so great. Every single one of them SHOULD (and please note the capital letters) issue some paperwork to prove what they have done, deal with the data and recycle all the kit in line with WEEE regulations.

That paper is dull but important. It proves you have fulfilled your duty of care. If the worst should happen and Genghis Khan, our beloved Information Commissioner, should appear at your door with a taste for your first born, it is the paperwork which will placate him.

The basics are:

Waste transfer notes. Legally, to transport waste, you need the right notes. You may not consider your old PC to be waste but just believe me, it is in a legal sense. Compared to mass murder, not having a waste transfer note is not the most heinous of crimes, but I am just letting you know so that you can be aware. You did check that, didn’t you?

Asset lists. A bit more important and slightly more exciting. The person who collects your stuff should have an order from you asking him to collect your stuff and detailing what it is, and should then provide a full asset list of what has been collected. In an ideal world these match, and you file them under job done. I gave them PC A and they confirmed they have PC A in their possession. Your duty of care is in a good place. As long as your service provider has all the right licenses to do what they said they were going to do, at any rate. You did check that, didn’t you?

Certificates of data destruction. The final nail in your alibi. You remember PC A? Well we destroyed the data as agreed and here is the certificate to prove it. If that data now turns up somewhere nasty it is not your fault (as long as your service provider has insurance, all the right licenses and did what they said they would do and you checked that was all ok? You did check that, didn’t you?

Now, moving away from the exciting world of paperwork and your perfunctory due diligence, lets have a look at the data erasure or destruction. As I may have mentioned before, best practise is to extend the lifecycle of any equipment recycled, because 80% of the damage is done during manufacture. This is what WEEE regulations say and we all do our best for sustainability. And yes we can make a few bob out of it too. But let’s leave that for now.

Let’s just agree that every supplier, however good or bad they are, wants to sell PC A on. The easiest and cheapest way to do that is to leave it alone and get rid of it, sold as seen, and not worry at all about the hard disk. That happens. A lot. Genghis has a lot of fun. But most service providers will try to erase the old data somehow. Note I said erase, not destroy. If you destroy the hard drive for PC A it is pretty much worthless, so to make any money you would have to put a new drive in. Now already you have had to remove one drive, destroy it, and put another one in. So that has cost time and money. So the best option for all concerned is to leave the drive where it is and run some data erasure software to remove the data.

There is a standard for this, set by CESG, which is basically our sainted security services, GCHQ. To erase data with no known way of retrieving it, you need to use Infosec 5 level software. To keep this simple lets think of the task of dusting a television screen with the sun streaming in through the windows. If you use cheap over the counter software, which anyone can buy, it will cost you about £20 and you can use it forever. It gives you one wipe. Most of the dust is gone from the screen. Note the word most! It is a man’s wipe, a cursory thing not designed to be comprehensive, and if you knew how, you could get the dust back in a trice.

Infosec 5 software is a duster driven by your grandmother. It gives you three comprehensive wipes and gets right into the corners. No dust left anywhere. And in fact, if there is a hint of dust, that drive is rejected as being unsuitable for data erasure and summarily destroyed. Once wiped, no dust is brave enough to return even if a master criminal is involved.

But Infosec 5 software is not cheap and using it is not straightforward, so it is not available over the counter as it were. It is only provided by people like eReco because not only do we have to buy the expensive software license and train Ben and Aaron but we also have to pay a license fee per drive to boot. That is why we charge £5 per drive.

So when someone says ‘and we will sort your data’ you have to ask how? Because this is one of the areas where your duty of care comes into question. Del Boy may get you into some serious trouble if you do not take care.

In conclusion, the cheaper alternative I started off with can only save money in 3 crucial areas as far as I can see. They have to collect the stuff the same as us, but they could use staff who have not been security cleared and only send one driver along, which means your data could be left unattended if he or she needs a comfort break, for instance. Then they can save a bit by not bothering with any paperwork to speak of. Then they can save a lot by not dealing with your data properly. They can then make a bit more by ignoring WEEE regulations and flogging the kit for export to less scrupulous markets.

It’s not rocket science, is it?

Man Flu and the Education of the Masses

Never sell to a sales person. Not if you want to keep your sanity. I was reminded of this when, in my role as Commercial Manager, which is posh for sales and marketing manager, I took a call about email marketing.

The young man was trying to get me to divulge the marketing segments I was interested in, so that he could rattle off the zillions of relevant email addresses he had to sell me. But as I may have mentioned in the last few blogs, I am suffering from a severe dose of man flu. I am therefore not at my most patient or friendly. In fact, I am actually a miserable old git. The girls in the office are being very nice but I suspect they are planning to kill me if I don’t recover my normal genial persona very soon.

So, in answer to who my targets were, I said everyone. No seriously. Yes everyone. Any business or organisation, charity, public sector, school or drug dealer who has electronic devices of a data bearing nature. Surely I want some more than others? No, I want everyone. Even drug dealers are legally required to recycle.

Which was me being obtuse. Of course, I want people with lots of data bearing devices to dispose of unnaturally early in their lifecycle who laugh at my jokes and have no apparent budgetary concerns. I will have as many of those as you can give me, thank you very much.

Size is really the only thing that makes a difference. Because if you are big you produce a lot of waste and you naturally develop a process to dispose of it. Or so you would think. As I may have pointed out once or twice, regular readers will confirm this, not having a process leaves you as a disaster waiting to happen.

I had a very interesting meeting with a new entity set up to deal with several large areas of the education sector the other day. Sort of outsourced government stuff if you see what I mean. Nice chaps. Seemed to like the odd joke I threw in and listened to what we had to say. Their previous supplier was a bit lax about the paperwork apparently.

Well I say previous but I mean current, soon to be previous. In the wonderful in-sourcing and outsourcing world, these guys were getting organised, starting with a clean slate, and the fact that they were exposed to a large amount of doggy-doo hitting the proverbial fan had unnerved them just a little. They wanted to put in place a much better arrangement, and who better than eReco with our DIPCOG approval and ADISA certification. We showered them in paperwork, generally showing them what we could do and I am hopeful that we will have a fruitful arrangement going forwards. I am dusting off my second meeting jokes already.

But the point is they are of a size where they have to get their act together, and their re-organisation gave them the motivation to do it. Smaller businesses have exactly the same issues, but because they do not produce the same volumes of disposals, they are rarely geared up. They largely remain blissfully unaware of the fates which might befall them.

I am very concerned about this market, the SME, although in reality it is the ME which is of the greatest concern. Your average very small business sorts himself out one way or another, and Genghis Khan, our friendly neighbourhood ICO, very rarely gets involved down there. Medium to large businesses though...they do get in his cross hairs every once in a while.

My opinion is that we need a lot more education to the SME sector. Neither the ICO or any of the other interested parties give clear, concise advice. There is a lot of ‘if you don’t we will smite you’ but very little ‘Responsible Recycling 101’ available. We here in eReco-land are trying to redress that balance and hence the existence of this blog in the first place.

So I did not buy any email addresses. I apologise to my young friend for being a pain in the human recycling bin. I am naturally cantankerous when I don’t feel one hundred per cent, and I have to be nice to customers. That hurts when you have a temperature and a bad throat and a headache.