Julie Chenadec from GITA gave an interview to the Dutch news portal Computable on CEDaCI and how it tackles the e-waste question.
According to the figures of the Amsterdam Economic Board, there was an estimated number of 4.3 million servers at Dutch data centres in 2016 and 1.5 million of which were in the Greater Amsterdam region. Approximately half a million servers are discarded every year in a replacement cycle.
Certified recyclers only process 24 per cent of this hardware into raw materials and only 11 per cent of the servers refurbished in the Netherlands can be sold for the re-use in the Netherlands and abroad.
This imbalance is not only undesirable for sustainability, but also for health reasons: many written-off equipment still ends up in Africa for processing. There it is destroyed and burned, releasing toxic substances and in many cases, no process of reuse has been set up. It involves dangerous work and often child labour, said Julie Chenadec, the project manager from Green IT Amsterdam.
Moreover, geopolitical considerations play a role. She points to a list of 27 critical raw materials for the processing industry drawn up by the EU, including the ICT sector, the so-called 'critical raw materials' (CRMs). Think of cobalt, tungsten, silicon metal, barite, magnesium, phosphorus and graphite. Sixteen of them come from China, the rest from Africa, in particular, Congo and South Africa. In Europe, it is not yet fully understood that the industry depends on China for around 60 per cent of the raw materials
Moreover, geopolitical considerations play a role. She points to a list of 27 critical raw materials for the processing industry drawn up by the EU, including the ICT sector, the so-called 'critical raw materials' (CRMs). Think of cobalt, tungsten, silicon metal, barite, magnesium, phosphorus and graphite. Sixteen of them come from China, the rest from Africa, in particular, Congo and South Africa. In Europe, it is not yet fully understood that the industry depends on China for around 60 per cent of the raw materials.
CEDaCI
Julie Chenadec has good hope to reach circularity solutions. CEDaCI (Circular Economy for the Data Center Industry) is a European project to address the e-waste problem which is present across the EU.
The aim is to come up with a circular model that allows valuable raw materials to be reclaimed from hardware which reached the end of life. Sometimes from a server or switch, in other cases in the form of reusable components or, if necessary, as a raw material. With the additional aim of creating a better-structured market for second-hand data centre equipment in Europe. Parties from four countries are involved in CEDaCI: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. In addition to Green IT Amsterdam, SIMS, Aliter Networks, NL Digital, Amsterdam Economic Board and Surfsara are among the Dutch participants.
The DDA - the Dutch Datacenter Association - also feels the urgency. GITA is in discussion with DDA about a separate project to increase the focus on refurbished and recycled hardware in Dutch data centres. This project entitled ReStructure 2.0 refers to a former project that we have done in the field of recycling and renovation, "says Chenadec. Read more in Dutch.