Reusing IT team

What is Reusing IT?  

It all started in 1996 simply by wanting to do the right thing in terms of reuse rather than recycling. At work (as an IT Manager for RACAL Electronics) I had been asked to dispose of 200 desktop PCs which were taking up valuable space needed by manufacturing for finished products. Realising that they would be dismantled, despite still being in good working order, left me uncomfortable and looking for a solution.  

Struggling to find a local answer, I came across Plockton High School, where a former maths and computing teacher (now based in post-apartheid South Africa and on the hunt for computers) had reached out to their former school to help. That link led to a 10-year partnership with their charity ‘Computers for Africa’ - each year travelling to various parts of Africa to set up computers in schools – this amounted to approximately 500 each year! 

At that stage, there was no real digital divide in the UK as life had not moved online in the way it has now, but there was a clear disadvantage for African schools and NGOs without access to technology. 

The Scottish side of our work came from being asked to help school children here, and with that, the next phase began – ‘Reusing IT’;  our own charity. With certain aspects of the school curriculum relying on digital access, the digital divide had arrived in the UK – those without access to a device weren’t being educated in the same way. COVID shone a light on that very abruptly as home-schooling was such a patchy and excluding experience for many. 
Now we help anybody who is digitally excluded, with our main focus being on children and education.  

How does Reusing IT get the Equipment? 

When we started, we would take anything we could get and repair it – we had people out with soldering irons fixing circuit boards. Over time we looked for more up-to-date equipment which we could turn around more quickly. But our view is that provided someone can get online and access a certain application they need, then the age of the computer doesn’t matter if it can do the job required. We have 15-year-old computers fitted with SSDs, using Lubuntu software, that are more than adequate for online education.   

The early adopters of our work who donated computers were universities and schools - the educators! They all wanted to know their equipment would continue to be used for education, so they were our natural allies then, and still are today. Big business and larger corporates have been much harder to engage with, perhaps as they are less involved in the social benefit of re-use.

We mainly receive donated laptops, desktops and tablets as well as equipment such as switches and servers. Donations of equipment (or money) are always welcome. We never say no! Anyone interested in donating can contact us through our website. We can formalise any arrangement to the standard of any other ITAD, providing risk and method statements and all relevant processing documentation. 

What are some of the Challenges with Receiving Donations? 

We try to work with everything we are given – because if we limit the support we offer, then someone will end up digitally excluded because of a restriction we’ve imposed. Whilst in an ideal world we would give all children the same age and quality of device it is always going to be dictated by what’s available.  

We do try to make sure from a support/maintenance perspective that if we are giving computers to a school, they are all the same specification, and the same approach applies when we are giving more than one device within the same family to limit any arguments! 

One of the biggest challenges is that the industry is becoming more and more regulated and those involved in ITAD need all relevant accreditations and standards. Partnerships with accredited ITAD vendors are now even more vital! 

Where does Techbuyer come in?  

We need Techbuyer to assist us in gaining equipment from donors who don’t want to work with us directly because we don’t have the aforementioned accreditations. In doing this they can also help to break the stigma around refurbished IT. Sourcing components at a reasonable cost is another key role – for example, we need solid-state drives for every device we donate. 

Techbuyer is a natural ally and it’s a partnership that will ensure sustainability over time for what we are doing. We know that relationships are very important – it’s been people and good working relationships that have built all of the work we have achieved to date. 

What are some of the Recent Success Stories? 

Our most recent success has been to deliver over 2,000 computers to Ukraine.  At no point did I ever think I’d be involved in digital exclusion in a country where that country is at war. It changes all the parameters and makes you focus on what’s important – making decisions like; children who are within an artillery shell of the frontline must have a laptop for extra mobility and flexibility, while children out of that range can use a desktop in a school environment - not the norm for most IT implementations!   

Experiencing first-hand the transformational benefits of computer reuse in the most difficult circumstances has also caused us to reappraise our own work and refreshingly, we have gone back to where we started. Forget about age, make, model or specification; simply focus on ‘what does the device need to do?’ and all of a sudden many, many more devices become excellent candidates for reuse!   

This has also shown that Reusing IT is still prepared to respond to new needs – the digital divide keeps evolving in different ways and we can be there to bridge it. 
On an individual scale, because that’s what it all boils down to, we recently helped an 80-year-old woman whose husband had died five years before. He had always “driven the computer” that simply needed a new CMOS battery and so for the first time since he died, she has printed off her Christmas card mailing labels and now knows how to Facetime her grandchildren in Canada! 

What does the Future of Reusing IT Look Like? 

With the fantastic support from Techbuyer, hopefully very good!  

We need to continuously learn more about each other so the interactions between us are seamless and that everyone knows what each other is doing – ultimately so we can get devices (from those who want them to have a new reused life), into the hands of those who need them, whether that is a business looking for Cisco Wireless Access Points or children needing laptops for school work, reuse is vital for Sustainability regardless of whether it is Environmental, Social or Economic.