IT Equipment Disposal Policy

Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to establish and define standards, procedures, and restrictions for the disposal of non-leased IT equipment in a legal, environmentally friendly and cost-effective manner. The University’s surplus or obsolete IT equipment (i.e. desktop computers, servers, etc.) must be disposed of according to legal requirements and environmental regulations through appropriate external agents and University’s upgrade guidelines. Therefore, all disposal procedures for retired IT equipment must adhere to University-approved methods.

Scope
This policy applies to the proper disposal of all non-leased University equipment including PCs workstations, laptops, printers, mobile phones, PDA’s and other hand-held devices, servers, switches, routers, and so on. University-owned surplus equipment, obsolete equipment, and any equipment beyond reasonable repair or reuse are covered by this policy. Where applicable, it is desirable to achieve some residual value of the equipment in question through reselling, auctioning, donation, or reassignment to a less-critical function.

Please note that most equipment will have little or no value once beyond the primary and secondary deployment timeframe. It is important to be realistic as in most cases, resale value will be small or zero.

Definitions

1. "Non-leased" refers to any and all IT equipment that is the sole property of the University; that is, equipment that is not rented, leased, or borrowed from a third-party supplier or partner company. This includes equipment purchased through a University Research grant.
2. "Disposal" refers to the reselling, recycling, donating, or discarding of IT equipment through responsible, ethical, and environmentally sound means.
3. "Surplus" refers to hardware that has been replaced by upgraded equipment or is surplus to existing requirements.
4. "Beyond reasonable repair" refers to any and all equipment whose condition requires repair or refurbishment that is likely cost equal to or more than total replacement.
5. "Primary Deployment" refers to the time period for which new equipment should be used.
6. "Secondary Deployment" refers to a period of up to two years after the completion of the primary deployment of the IT equipment.

Guidelines
Disposal of surplus IT equipment (that are assets) will follow existing financial policy, per http://www.finance.murdoch.edu.au/admin/polproc/manual/assets/1105.html. All paperwork associated with the disposal of the equipment is to be completed by the requestor.

Practices
Before equipment is considered for disposal, it is recommended that the owner or requester contact IT Services to determine if the equipment could be re-used in the University, per the Primary and Secondary deployment guidelines.

Acceptable methods for the disposal of IT equipment are as follows:

1. Used as a trade-in against cost or negotiated discount rate of replacement or associated item. This option is only available for some manufacturers, e.g. SUN.
2. Sold by auction or by a third party if the equipment is perceived to have saleable value greater than $100.
3. Given to the Guild or students if of no perceived and written down value.
4. Donated to schools, charities and other non-profit organizations.
5. Discarded per socially acceptable environmental guidelines.

It is the responsibility of any employee of the University with the appropriate authority to ensure that IT equipment is disposed of according to one or more of the methods prescribed above. It is imperative that any disposals performed by the University are done appropriately, responsibly, and ethically, and with University resource planning in mind. The following rules must therefore be observed:

1. Trade-Ins: Where applicable, in cases where a piece of equipment is due for replacement by a newer model, reasonable actions must be taken to ensure that a fair and market trade-in value is obtained for the old equipment against the cost of the replacement. The ITS Business Manager will assume this responsibility.
    
2. Equipment sold or given to Guild or Students. Any equipment sold to staff or given to the Guild or students must not be re-employed for sanctioned use at the University campuses. Equipment is not supplied with any additional software other than the operating system and freely available software. Technical support is not available for this equipment.
    
3. Income Derived from Disposal: Whenever possible, it is desirable to achieve some residual value from retired or surplus IT equipment, although any returns are expected to be small. Any and all receipts from the sale of the equipment must be kept and remitted to the department who owned the equipment. Income derived from sales to staff, the public, or through online auctioning must be fully receipted and paid to the central cashier once the Disposal Notification has been given to the Asset Coordinator. Sales to staff should be completed per the asset disposal policy (see above).
    
4. Cannibalization of Equipment beyond Reasonable Repair: The ITS Business Manager is responsible for verifying and classifying any equipment beyond reasonable repair. Equipment identified as much should be cannibalized for any spare and/or working parts that can still be put to sufficient use within the organization. IT Services will inventory and stockpile these parts. Remaining parts and/or whole machines unfit for use or any other disposal means will be disposed of according to socially acceptable environmental guidelines.
    
5. Decommissioning of Equipment: All hardware slated for disposal by any means must be fully wiped clean of all University data and software. IT Services will assume responsibility for decommissioning this equipment by deleting all files, University-licensed programs, and applications using a pre-approved disk-sanitizer. This sanitizer must completely overwrite (2x) each and every disk sector of the machine with zero-filled blocks. In addition, any property tags or identifying labels must also be removed from the retired equipment.
    
6. Harmful Substances: IT equipment contains hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, bromine, cadmium, etc. IT Services is responsible for selecting and approving external agents for the disposal of redundant equipment according to socially acceptable environmental guidelines.
    
7. Donations: IT equipment with a written down value of $0 and per the above guidelines, may be donated to a University-approved school, charity, or other non-profit organization (i.e. a distributor of free machines to developing nations). All donations must be authorized by the University Director of Financial Services. All donation receipts must be submitted to the Office of Financial Services for taxation purposes.