Greener Computing

After more than http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2008/02/06/hp-recycles-250-millio n-... a billion pounds of electronics recycled or reused, Hewlett Packard is stepping up the program, announcing a buyback and recycling program for computers, accessories and other electronics.

The new HP Consumer Buyback and Planet Partners Recycling Program is the latest initiative in the company's goal to redu

In some ways, it's the oldest story in the green IT book: rapid growth and a divide between who runs up the utility bills and who pays the bills leads to spiraling IT costs; and when that waste comes to light, steps are taken to bring costs back down through any number of means.

But when these problems arise in a university setting, especially among some of the country's biggest and most IT-intensive universities, many of these problems are compounded with institutional issues, even if the solutions for public-sector IT departments are much the same as in the private-sector.

Even though IT managers are recognizing green IT as a solution to their economic woes, whether or not they care about the larger environmental woes green tech can also cure, the bulk of companies are hunkering down on spending even if it can save them big bucks.

The news comes in the form of results of Computerworld magazine's 2008 Forecast survey of IT managers, which found that 42 percent said their companies have no plans to take on new energy efficiency or environmental initiatives.

Although new initiatives may not be top priority for cash-strapped companies, a survey conducted earlier t

Over at GreenTech Media, Michael Kanellos has posted a great roundup of some of the cutting edge technologies he saw at the CEATEC expo in Japan.

Kanellos writes that, after decades of pioneering not just electronics in general but also energy-efficient technologies, some of the country's -- and the world's -- biggest tech companies are setting their sites on green IT.

New e-waste recycling laws passed in Oregon and Washington take effect on New Year's Day, requiring electronics manufacturers to recycled old hardware, and promising to spur the growth of responsible e-waste disposal.

The laws, which passed in mid-2007 in Oregon and in 2006 in Washington, require manufacturers to pay for the recycling of their electronics products sold in each state, and is expected to collect as much as 12 million pounds of electronics in Oregon and about 25 million in Washington in the first year alone.

Taking on green IT from the ground up, the latest issue of Microsoft's Architecture Journal offers expert insight on just about every level of data center management.

The quarterly journal, available for download as a PDF from the Microsoft Developer Network's library, looks at the five key elements of green IT architecture: the physical construction and management of faciltiies, optimizing the platform a data center runs on, profiling the energy usage of the facility, developing the best applications for CPU usage and energy consumption, and making the best use of energy-efficient cloud comp

Many small pieces can add up to a big whole, and one small city in the north of Japan is finding there's money in the process as well.

Odate, a city of about 80,000 people in Akita Prefecture, on the northern end of Honshu, the big island of Japan, has begun diverting small electronics from landfills and using the town's mining history to salvage precious metals from the waste.

By putting collection bins outside supermarkets and community centers, the city gathering about 17 tons of e-waste in 11 months, from April 2007 to February 2008, according to a report from Harufumi Mori in Japan's As

Nearly everyone in the IT world is concerned about the environment, but fewer than two-thirds are doing anything about it.

That's the news in a nutshell from a survey of over 3,100 IT managers in the United Kingdom conducted by iomart and Green IT Magazine. Although nine out of 10 respondents said that the environment was important to their operations, only 38 percent said their companies have incorporated a policy to address their environmental impact.

There's been a lot of talk lately about green data centers, and with good reason. As businesses move away from paper records and in-person transactions and more towards computer-based transactions and digital information storage, the amount of energy that data centers use is growing -- and fast.

According to the EPA, data center energy use doubled between 2000 and 2006, and many are worried this figure may double again in just a few years.

As the end of the year approaches, it is time for predictions and looks-back of all types, and green IT is no exception. While year-end lists are starting to percolate through the web, Inforworld's Ted Samson has pulled together a good roundup of predictions from experts in the industry.

Woven throughout the predictions are the grim state of the economy, although as Preston Gralla wrote yesterday, the recession won't likely slow down corporate green IT initiatives.