Toshiba to recycle notebooks in India

If you have bought a laptop from this company, then all you have to do is call a toll-free number for details

Toshiba to recycle notebooks in India

If you have bought a laptop from this company, then all you have to do is call a toll-free number for details

There was a time when companies who wanted you to buy their laptops buried you under a variety of jargon that proved that their laptop was the best. While one talked about his processor, another mentioned his memory, while a third boasted that his screen was almost as big as that of a traditional PC.

Today, we are giving a lot of serious thought to green PCs, and while this has not become a selling point yet, it is heartening to see that Toshiba has launched a new program that concerns recycling their notebook PCs.

How it works

If you have an old Toshiba laptop that you want to recycle, then you can call their toll free number 1800-11-8674 (you can also call 011-2638-3500, but this is a metered number) and give them your laptop details. Once this is done, you can get more information on how to proceed.

One nice thing about this deal is that it comes with no strings attached that is, Toshiba is not going to insist that you have to buy another laptop from them before they recycle your old one.

Comprehensive plan

While this is good for older laptops, Toshiba says that its commitment to green technology spans five separate stages and covers procurement, where items that are difficult to dissemble are shunned. For manufacturing, the company reduces packaging materials for parts. Similarly, for distribution, styrene-foam-free packaging is used.

At the user stage, the company says that it is trying to reduce the power consumption of its laptops. The recycling option that is now available in India as of May 1, 2009, is actually the fifth stage.

Canada angle

Toshiba says that it is RoHS Compliant (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and the company has been offering recycling services internationally for a while now, and some of them are better than what is offered in India. For instance, in Canada, Toshiba launched TERRE (Toshiba Environmental Recycling and Recovery Effort), a free PC take-back recycling program, in March 2006. The program accepts any brand of end-of-life PC, while in India, only Toshiba laptops are accepted.

While it would be nice to have something in India like in Canada, this is definitely a great beginning and will definitely play a role in making India a little greener.

QUICK TAKE
>>Toshiba is offering to recycle laptops made by it
>>The company is offering to recycle the laptop without forcing you to buy a new laptop from it
>>It would be nice if other companies also followed this lead and helped the environment

Delete your personal data first!
Before you get rid of any device that has your personal information and this ranges from PCs and laptops to iPhones and BlackBerries remember to delete all personal information on this device. Since we are specifically talking about laptops that are going to be recycled here, make sure that you destroy all the information on your drive. Merely deleting information will not do, especially if it is sensitive or confidential data. You have to wipe out the entire hard disk to be absolutely sure. You could visit a site like killdisk.com to find out how you can delete all information, and also to download a free utility to do the same for you.

Once you have removed all the data from your drive, call Toshiba and get more details from them. If you own a laptop from a company other than Toshiba, one that doesn't offer a recycling program, you could visit sites like RecycleAlaptop.com, which claims to be a zero landfill solution for disposing of unwanted laptop computers.

What is RoHS?
The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive was adopted in February 2003 by the European Union and took effect on July 1, 2006. It is required to be enforced in each member state. This directive restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment. It is closely linked with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE), which sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for electrical goods and is part of a legislative initiative to solve the problem of huge amounts of toxic e-waste.

Source: Wikipedia