Back in 2017, Dell said that they would use plastics recovered from oceans as part of their packaging material for new PCs and electronics. Aside from cleaning up the earth, the move would also boost PR and buoy Dell as a more environmentally-friendly brand. Now, the Lone Star company will be doubling down on their long-term sustainability efforts with even more lofty goals.
Announced ahead of the all-digital CES 2021 event next month, Dell says they are committed to "recycling one product for every product purchased" by the end of this decade with all packaging material to be made completely from recycled or renewable materials. Dell calls it "designing for Circularity" that should ultimately make their products easier to upgrade, repair, and finally recycle once they reach EoL.
"Dell Technologies’ design guidelines are based around extending lifecycles, reducing resource use and ensuring what we do use can be given a second (or third) life," the Dell fact sheet claims. "Product designers use best practices from recycling and repair professionals to understand what is needed to make our products easy to disassemble."
Outside of just packaging material, the manufacturer will also be investing more in reclaiming rare-earth magnets from older products and even producing printer ink by capturing particulate matter created by diesel fuel engines that would have otherwise been air pollution. Dell says the programs have already produced 25000 new hard drives and 30 mL of black ink per 45 minutes of capturing diesel pollution, respectively.
Most buyers likely won't notice these supply chain changes when purchasing their brand new Dell products, but it's definitely something we can get behind if the build quality of products or the user experience aren't negatively impacted.
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