If money is tight, are people going to be buying expensive new hardware, so they can dispose of the old?

There are plenty of people who will be buying new things. An incredible number of people are replacing pefectly good CRT TVs with 32" flat screens. I know a blind person who's doing this. No doubt millions of people will spend £300 on these new wee laptops, just because they can, and eventually they'll throw stuff out to make room for new toys. The fact that they're paying more for lecky and bread and eggs doesn't mean they can't afford shiny things.

If you go into battle saying you're all going to die, you will lose. Keep talking up a recession one will emerge...and companies will cease all but essential IT investment - canning projects this year and not funding new ones next year.

Back to the article, WEE a farce. Buy off Amazon, go to their WEE area, you'll be referred to another site which, in my case, referred me to my local council dump. The middle-man is paid by Amazon, I doubt Amazon made any contribution to my local council.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive may be touted as a cost for suppliers, but unless organisations get their asset registers in order, it will also create a significant cost for UK business.

Such policies as WEEE assume a level of asset management far beyond that achieved by the majority of UK business. Unless supplying a like for like replacement, suppliers will only remove and dispose of equipment they have delivered initially. How many UK businesses can accurately identify the location of their WEEE equipment within the organisation and confirm when it was purchased and from whom? Without such information, just which company do they expect to handle the free disposal?

Organisations need to implement sound asset disposal procedures. Linking the asset register to a document management system will ensure a scanned WEEE certificate is linked to a disposed asset, providing the required audit trail. Each asset can be recorded alongside the supplier’s name and email address, enabling swift supplier contact when disposal is due.

UK business is already complaining about excessive red tape, perhaps why the WEEE Directive introduction in July 2007 was so downplayed. But a belief that the onus of WEEE is firmly on equipment suppliers could be an expensive mistake.

Karen Conneely

Group Commercial Manager

Real Asset Management

www.realassetmgt.co.uk