Foundation floats notion of e-waste offset certificates

I have written enough about technology recycling, refurbishment and e-waste to know that you also care about it because you read those blogs.

While my personal inclination is to bring visibility to organizations that are either A) disposing of technology responsibly or B) advocating policies and regulations for responsible disposal, the E-Waste Foundation out of the Netherlands is picking up the idea that businesses or individuals may be able to "offset" some of the damage they are doing by buying certificates to help account for this. So, while the 100 or so PCs that your company disposes of might not be processed through the best channels, you can be reasonably sure that 100 PCs somewhere else WILL be handled properly, because E-Waste Foundation will use your certificates to manage this and help build the relationships in Africa and elsewhere to process things properly.

I didn't speak to the executives running this organization directly, but this story from GreenerComputing has some more details about E-Waste Foundation's intentions.

Like I said, I would prefer to see more time and money directed toward meaningful policies and best practices suggestions for doing this properly from the start. I'm not particularly fond of carbon offsets, as an example, because I feel like they are a bit of a copout. But this new initiative from E-Waste Foundation definitely represents some positive activity indeed related to this thorny issue.