C A S E S T U D Y
DISPOSAL DILEMMAS: WELCOME TO THE TECH INDUSTRY’ S DIRTIEST SECRET
Global e-waste is a rapidly growing problem, with a new report revealing that a record 62 million tonnes of electronic waste was generated in 2022 – an 82 % increase since 2010. This figure is projected to grow by another 32 % to 82 million tonnes by 2030.
Simon Taylor, Chairman and Co-founder, n2s / Bioscope
The technology supply chain, including equipment manufacturers and the data centre industry, is a major contributor to the problem of electronic waste. Yet, it often takes an insider with a new perspective to truly find a solution. This is certainly the case for entrepreneur Simon Taylor – formerly Co-founder of Next Generation Data( NGD), a hyperscale data centre in Wales, now owned by Vantage Data Centers.
After decades of innovation in the telecoms and data centre industries, he is now tackling the challenge of sustainable IT as the Chairman and Co-founder of technology lifecycle services group, n2s / Bioscope, a business that is focused on the next great frontier: electronic waste in the data centre industry.
Intelligent Data Centres caught up with him to find out more.
How did the shift from data centre management and ownership to data centre waste disposal happen?
The reason we got to where we are today is that while we were running NGD we had lorries regularly arriving on-site to do technical refreshes on the racks and devices belonging to some of the world’ s largest tech companies. Our halls were 500 or 600 racks and they would be completely refreshed over a couple of months, replacing equipment worth millions of pounds at a time. We realised this was happening on a massive scale.
So, after selling NGD in 2020, my business partner, Nick Razey, and I took a large shareholding in my friend’ s family recycling business. We did it for two main reasons. It wasn’ t just about recycling; it was because we had ambitions to use biochemical processing to extract and dissolve precious metals from circuit boards and other IT equipment.
The fact that we could be a major part of the green agenda, even though we knew it would be difficult and very expensive, was a key motivator. We persevered and now we can extract not only precious metals but also other metals from circuit boards. We’ re also able to recycle the green fibreglass that these circuit boards are made of.
What typically happens to the old IT equipment after a company’ s technical refresh?
The security of data on old equipment is a primary concern. Companies – especially those in government or banking – are extremely worried about sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. To prevent this, the way we do it entails all equipment being meticulously accounted for and shredded on-site inside a special lorry.
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