In the EMU computer lab sit rows of computers. This is where University-owned computers, purchased with student technology fees, go to supposedly retire.
But what happens to that investment when a computer never retires? Instead, it is kept until it dies or has no value. What happens to that money?
The answer mostly depends on where you go to school.
At both the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, individual departments take responsibility for both purchasing and deciding when to dispose of computers and technology. In Corvallis, that responsibility has been fortified by an organization that encourages departments to reinvest in technology. In Eugene, however, departments have inconsistent policies about what to do with outdated campus technology.
Oregon State Surplus, an organization that sells off unwanted computers at Oregon State, gave almost $500,000 back to the departments last fiscal year and computers are replaced roughly every three years. At the University of Oregon, unwanted computers are handed down from department to department until they are of little value. No central organization at the UO attempts to profit from selling the computers.
While the departmental technology directors at both schools contacted for this story said they purchase new computers as often as possible, their policies about when to dispose of equipment were radically different.
Life after retirement
At the University of Oregon, individuals and departments can list unwanted computer equipment on an internal Web site that makes used technology available to others at UO for free.
“We give as much away to other departments as we can,” Bradley said.
For the most part, the useable pieces of equipment are snapped up by those who need them, Saxman said.
If no one claims an item on the UO surplus list, they are put on another list operated by the state of Oregon. The machines are then auctioned in a State Surplus Property Auction because state laws restrict departments from reselling technology, considered state-taxpayer property, to the general public. The responsibility of wiping the hard drive and removing all licensed software falls to the last owner (in most cases a department).
And what about the computers that don’t make it that far, the ones that stop working? That’s where Environmental Technologist Jeremy Chambers comes in.
Non-functional computers are turned over to the Office of Environmental Health and Safety’s Computer Harvest Program, which Chambers administers. At this point the dead computers become “e-waste.”
“We’re getting broken, obsolete computers,” he said. “Then what we do is store them and make sure they don’t make it into the wastestream.”
Bil Burton, Oregon State’s User Support Analyst, said that dead pieces of technology require extra attention because they contain dangerous materials.
“There are certain hazards with handling computers,” he said. “Computers, hard drives, CRT (monitors) don’t lend (themselves) very well to recycling.”
The broken equipment is then carefully “de-manufactured” by Computer Harvest to divert the heavy metals, such as lead, that would otherwise end up in landfills and eventually in water sources, Chambers said. This material is then hauled away by third-party companies that dispose of the raw materials through resale. At this point the investment is lost.
A different approach
At Oregon State, individuals and departments with unwanted computer equipment contact Oregon State Surplus.
The specialized department collects all of Oregon State’s unwanted materials, from scientific equipment to office furniture and computers, and assesses the materials for potential reuse and often resale to the general public.
At the “OSUsed Store,” Patsy Hendricks, surplus property supervisor, said her office sells functioning equipment during public sales in Corvallis. Every Wednesday from noon until 3 p.m., anyone can come by the store to purchase a variety of surplus equipment from Oregon State and 35 state agencies. Burton said his department handles all the legwork about deciding whether a computer should be given to another department or resold to the general public at OSUsed. Oregon State Surplus also wipes computers’ hard drives clean before sale, according to the department’s Web site.
“We’re a gatekeeper for property that is purchased with taxpayer funds,” he said.
Saxman, who previously worked at Oregon State, said the department is very aggressive in its tactics to resell old technology – employing Internet auction sites and a variety of other methods to retain some of the initial technology investment.
Hendricks said “unique” and easily shippable items are sometimes sold on e-Bay, and equipment from scientific labs is sometimes sold on the auction site Lab-X.
Burton described the process as incentive-based: Oregon State Surplus takes $50 from every sale and then gives departments a 10- to 90-percent return on the sale of their used technology, based on how much the equipment sold.
Higher selling prices result in larger returns for departments, so the incentive is to sell while technology is newer and to reinvest the returns in newer technology.
Oregon State Surplus tries to sell all functioning computers at the OSUsed stores, and with prices ranging from $49 to $200, they tend to sell, Hendricks said.
In the average sale, the store makes $3,500, allowing Oregon State Surplus give almost $500,000 back to the departments last fiscal year.
Any non-functioning computer equipment goes to one of two companies in the Portland area – Computer Drive Connection or E-Tech. The companies take the equipment and give Oregon State a certificate of destruction to prove it has not been resold or sent overseas, Hendricks said.
A pre-determined schedule.
The UO’s Microcomputing lab computers are replaced on a four-year cycle, so roughly 75 of the 300 total computers in the McKenzie, Millrace, Klamath and EMU labs are replaced each year, Information Services lab manager Mary Bradley said.
“Those labs are used for multimedia, architecture and the applications using them require more high-end machines,” Bradley said.
When Bradley purchases new machines for these labs, the older computers are rotated to the EMU lab. That’s where every machine purchased by Microcomputing eventually ends up at the end of its scheduled lifespan.
The long haul technique
UO Libraries, for example, attempts to sustain its technology hardware as long as possible, about seven to eight years, Library Systems Assistant Director Duncan Barth said.
That doesn’t mean the aged computers keep chugging along in the same function they were when first assigned; over time desktop computers are utilized for different purposes that require less speed and fewer resources. Thus, a top-of-the-line computer used by staff members for scanning and digitizing periodicals eventually becomes an Internet browser for the general public.
Who pays?
Bradley and Tony Saxman, director of the Business Technology Center at the Lundquist College of Business, said most of the funding for on-campus technology comes from students.
In the recent past, the School of Business purchased new computers in bulk almost every year, Saxman said, but the department passed on new machines for the past two years because Educational Technology Committee, which distributes student technology fees, did not provide much funding.
Out of the Microcomputing Labs’ annual $70,000 new hardware budget $33,162, almost one half, comes from the $90 technology fee collected from students each year. The rest comes from a general fund set up for computer labs long before the technology fee existed, Bradley said.
If the labs needed any extra money, the request would go to the Educational Technology Committee who would distribute the funds collected from students. It’s a capital investment in a well-utilized infrastructure, but when UO
departments determine that a computer is no longer worth keeping around, the machines enter into an uncharted and relatively uncontrolled process governed by state laws.
This is also when the differences between UO’s and Oregon State’s computer waste management systems become most apparent.
Contact the news editor at [email protected]
Reporter Jobetta Hedelman contributed to this story.