Pc model pushes recycled content material and restore

Lenovo makes use of each post-industrial and post-consumer plastics in laptops, desktops, workstations, screens and equipment. | Hernan E. Schmidt/Shutterstock

Lenovo is utilizing extra recycled supplies in its merchandise and dealing towards a round financial system, at the same time as a latest research from the corporate discovered that solely half of senior IT enterprise leaders are conscious of the financial worth of e-scrap.

In fiscal 12 months 2021-2022, Lenovo begain utilizing recycled magnesium, aluminum and ocean-bound plastic in its merchandise, and elevated the variety of merchandise that use some quantity of post-consumer resin (PCR) to 248 merchandise, up from 103 merchandise the 12 months prior, based on its annual environmental, social and governance report.

“The corporate’s corporate-wide environmental requirements and specs require its product designers to contemplate environmentally acutely aware design practices to facilitate and encourage recycling and minimization of useful resource consumption,” the report said. 

Lenovo makes use of each post-industrial and post-consumer plastics in laptops, desktops, workstations, screens and equipment, and by fiscal 12 months 2025-2026 goals to have 100% of its PC merchandise include some PCR.

In 2021, it used 7,800 metric tons of plastics containing recycled content material. The report famous that the burden of PCR used is falling every year, at the same time as the corporate makes use of PCR in additional objects, as a result of Lenovo can be reducing its plastics use total by making merchandise thinner and lighter.

The corporate will start reporting on the whole weight of recycled metals in subsequent 12 months’s report, based on the report. 

Aiming for circularity

Lenovo additionally provides end-of-life recycling and administration packages for shoppers and companies. Since 2005, it has processed 324,811 metric tons of laptop gear by its contracted service suppliers; 34,163 metric tons of that whole got here in 2021, the report said. 

Of that 2021 whole, 5.5% was reused as merchandise or components and 88.2% was recycled as supplies. The remaining was disposed of, with 1.5% incinerated utilizing waste-to-energy restoration, 2.1% incinerated as disposal therapy and a pair of.6% landfilled.

“The corporate can advance a round financial system by optimizing the usage of its merchandise and components,” the report famous, and a part of that features restore choices.

By fiscal 12 months 2025-2026, Lenovo plans to have the ability to do 84% of repairs on the buyer website, with out having to ship the PC to a service heart. By the identical deadline, the corporate goals to restore 76% of repairable components for future use. 

“The quickly altering international context urges the worldwide enterprise group to reply with smarter improvements and extra accountable operations, seizing each alternative to behave with a bigger function in thoughts,” mentioned CEO Yuanqing Yang in a press launch.

Low consciousness of e-scrap worth

Lenovo additionally revealed a report titled “Rethinking E-waste in a Round Financial system,” which discovered solely 50% of senior IT enterprise leaders had been conscious of the potential financial worth of their group’s e-scrap, and 9% mentioned “they don’t even take into account it.”

Nevertheless, 75% of these surveyed mentioned their group measures and tracks the quantity of e-scrap they create yearly and 59% mentioned they elevated the quantity of {hardware} they bought throughout COVID-19. 

To convey consciousness to the worth of e-scrap and encourage recycling, Lenovo collaborated with a jeweler, Holly Ryan, to create 4 one-off designer rings produced from metals from recycled e-scrap, a press launch famous. 

Matt Codrington, Lenovo managing director, mentioned within the press launch that because the starting of the present fiscal 12 months, the corporate has already seen a 43% year-over-year improve within the variety of clients utilizing its asset restoration companies. 

“It’s incredible to witness so lots of our clients rethinking the lifecycle of expertise merchandise, making certain that each recoverable materials from each single system might be reused at finish of life,” Codrington mentioned. 

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