IT recycling for government departments

Case Study: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

With a large proportion of its employees being office based, the DWP is a vast user of IT equipment and services. System and hardware upgrades can therefore present a significant challenge. Aside from determining new requirements, the DWP needs to dispose of unwanted IT equipment responsibly.

DWP enlisted the help of their current IT provider, EDS, who outsourced the removal of their existing IT equipment to the not-for-profit, ethical company, Remploy e-cycle. With its ethical stance and objective to provide sustainable employment for disabled people, Remploy was the natural choice to partner with their existing IT supplier.

Remploy's role was to manage collections of used IT equipment from DWP sites and deliver it to their sites throughout the UK to be prepared for re-imaging and redeployment, donation, resale, or recycling.

All equipment was data cleansed, and any equipment that still had a useful life was then re-conditioned and redeployed within the DWP, or, where Remploy could achieve a significant resale value, was remarketed to generate income for the DWP.

The sifting or 'grading' process was managed by Remploy, as well as the stripping down, reconditioning, data cleansing and deliveries of the machines themselves, offering a fully-integrated outsourced solution.

Working in partnership with the DWP has enabled Remploy to create a large number of sustainable opportunities for disabled people, employing a variety of different skill sets - from delivery drivers to technicians and engineers. With 300,000 items passing through our workshops over a period of 18 months this has enabled Remploy to employ 170 people on this contract alone. In turn this has helped the DWP achieve one of its major objectives of enabling disabled people to maximise their potential and make a full and valuable contribution to society.