The U.S. Government Accountability Office is trying to put an end to one wasteful federal habit: The 10,000 computers the Environmental Protection Agency estimates the government discards each week.
The U.S. government is the world’s largest purchaser of information technology, yet doesn’t always dispose of its technology in responsible ways.
According to a GAO study, five agencies hand-picked due to the amount of electronics purchased — the departments of Defense, Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — have the capacity to dispose of their technology in different ways.
Agencies can donate their electronics to schools; recycle them; exchange them with other federal, state or local governments and agencies; or sell them through specific public auctions.
According to the GAO study, in 2003 the EPA helped pilot a strictly voluntary program called the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC) to encourage agencies to purchase environmentally-friendly electronic products, reduce the perceived impacts of these products during their use, and to manage the used electronics in an environmentally-friendly way.
GAO’s study found much more could be done to help reach the original goals of the FEC, and that currently only one-third of the federal workforce recycles its electronics.