LifeSpan supports Colorado E-Waste Law Signed April 20

LifeSpan's Matt Hansen, far right, looks on as Governor Hickenlooper signs the bill.

LifeSpan’s Environmental, Health & Safety Manager Matt Hansen joined other industry leaders in Colorado as Governor John Hickenlooper signed into law a ban on disposing of electronic waste in landfills.  Colorado joins 17 other states with such a ban.  Despite the proliferation of organizations and municipalities that offer free or very low-cost collection of e-waste, hundreds of thousands of pounds still get sent to landfills.   Companies like LifeSpan can ensure that almost 100% of e-waste material is recycled.  So now Coloradan’s have to do it.  Too bad it takes a law to make that happen.

Technology Recycling – Social or Legal Responsibility

Rocky Mountain Chapter HDI members get a tour of LifeSpan's warehouse facility.

The Rocky Mountain Chapter of HDI met at LifeSpan for their February meeting.  It included a tour and a presentation from company President Dag Adamson.  They featured the meeting in their quarterly newsletter, which you can view here.  LifeSpan was delighted to host the group!

Thailand Floods Impact Now – Hard Drive Shortages

The hard drive manufacturing shortage has created opportunity for some manufacturers that have weathered the floods in Thailand better than others, namely Seagate.

This shortage has affected PC industry shipments, which were down 1.4 percent for the fourth quarter 2011 compared to the previous year. Some analysts don’t attribute this to the Thailand floods and the subsequent hard drive shortage, accrediting the decline to competition from tablets, phones and e-readers.

Other notable impacts:

• The hard drive shortage will have a market impact into the third and fourth quarters of 2012.
• Hard drive prices have increased between 30 and 40 percent but have somewhat stabilized.
• Possible increase in demand for solid state drives.
• Impacting revenue at dependent companies like Intel and Nvidia.
• Speculators have bought up large lots of inventory, leading to early shortages.
• An additional effect is PC prices remaining stable when they would typically have become cheaper and the future possibility of higher pricing for PC and Laptops.

The reuse market for hard drives has also seen an impact from the Thailand floods. This shortage has increased pricing and resale opportunities in the secondary market for recyclers who process loose drives.

• Hard drive prices have increased between 30 and 60 percent depending on the size and manufacturer.  Larger, newer, drives especially have increased in value and demand.
• Speculators have taken positions on some inventory. As the pricing stabilizes this inventory is being sold.
• Enterprises with hard drives slated for disposition (re-marketing – reuse), have pulled back some inventory for internal use.

Organizations that pull hard drives or destroy them but still want to resell the assets likely are seeing even lower offers than usual for these drive-less systems.  The refurbisher needs to replace the drives with what is now a more expensive, or less available, drive.

Now is a good time to retire storage systems, servers, PCs and Laptops to maximize value.  Just be sure to utilize a NAID Certified partner to wipe the hard drives.

The Modern Data Destruction Standard – NIST 800-88

by Dag Adamson, President, LifeSpan Technology Recycling

In January of 1995, as the result of a presidential order, the U.S. Department of Defense introduced the National Industry Operating Program Operating Manual (NISPOM), more commonly known as the “DoD 5220.22.M” standard. This new standard, developed collaboratively by the government and industry, offered new and improved operational guidelines and processes to securely safeguard our nation’s government technology and information. The standard addresses the protection of atomic energy, nuclear weapons and other highly sensitive confidential information held by the Dept. of Defense, the Dept. of Energy and other government entities.

At first glance, the standard’s reliance on government processes to ensure information security may seem somewhat arcane. To the contrary, the two page chart found in the back of the 135 page document has perhaps made the most significant impact on the data destruction industry. In this chart, there is a variety of storage media listed with two adjacent columns – one labeled “clear” and another “sanitize”. It is actually one line in this chart that indicates hard drives, can be “cleared” with a single pass data overwrite data and can be “sanitized” with a three pass data overwrite.

Ironically, the document does very little to discuss when a single-pass is appropriate and when a triple-pass is appropriate. In fact, during the 2006 National Association of Information Destruction (NAID) annual conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the most highly regarded and leading researchers in data destruction and forensics science, Simson Garfinkel Phd (co-author of “Remembrance of Data Passed: A Study Disk Sanitization Processes”, IEEE 2003 and presently a professor at Harvard) was asked by the author of this article about the scientific significance between a single-pass and a triple-pass. Garfinkel explained that he had located original members of the 5220.22.m standards team and had asked how a single-pass and triple-pass standard was determined to be an appropriate methodology. The response was, “it sounded like a good idea.” In fact, there is no documented scientific evidence that either single or triple-pass is superior at securing data.

In 2006, the 5220.22-m standard was updated and revised. The chart that discussed a 1-pass and 3-pass overwrite was removed. For more than 5 years, the number of hard drive overwrite passes has not been in the DoD 5220.22-m standard.

By the fall of 2006, as the result of a sponsorship from the Department of Homeland Security, a new standard for a practical approach to information security and media sanitizations was introduced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The objective of the NIST 800-88 standard is to provide an effective framework and an effective decision making process to handle media that will be ultimately reused or disposed of.

Key sections of the standard include:

• Section 1 explains the authority, purpose and scope, audience, and assumptions of the document, and outlines its structure.
• Section 2 presents an overview of the need for sanitization and the basic types of information, sanitization, and media.
• Section 3 provides general information on roles and responsibilities that influence sanitization decisions.
• Section 4 provides the user with a process flow to assist with sanitization decision making.
• Section 5 provides a summary of several general sanitization techniques.

• Appendix A contains a matrix of media with minimum recommended sanitization techniques for clearing, purging, or destroying various media. This appendix is to be used with the decision flow chart provided in Section 5.
• Appendix B contains a glossary defining terms used in this guide.
• Appendix C contains a listing of tools and external resources that can be referenced for assistance with media sanitization.
• Appendix D contains information sanitization considerations for a home user or telecommuter who may not have access to organizational resources.
• Appendix E contains a listing of sources and correspondence that was essential in developing this guide.
• Appendix F contains a sample sanitization form for documenting sanitization activities in an organization.

Two key distinctions about NIST 800-88 are noteworthy:

1. The standard offers a process and a way to think about what methodology(ies) are appropriate for data destruction requirements
2. Today’s media can be effectively cleared by one overwrite

The ultimate conclusions from NIST 800-88 are:

1. Process should be the main component of effective data destruction rather than the number of data overwrites
2. A single pass overwrite is suitable for data destruction, saving time and money while providing secure data destruction

Much of the data privacy and compliance industry has focused on a 15 year old standard, DoD 5220.22-m that was retired long ago. It is promising that a newer standard, NIST 800-88, is available and can provide guidelines for better decision making and policy development for effective data privacy and destruction.

Thailand Floods to Significantly Impact HDD Industry

This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on Tue, October 18th, 2011

 http://www.storagenewsletter.com/news/miscellaneous/thailand-floods-to-significant-impact-wd

For WD only: primary manufacturing site inundated, second site at risk

Western Digital Corp. has extended the suspension of its operations in Thailand.

Over the weekend, rising water penetrated the Bang Pa-in Industrial Park flood defenses, inundating the company’s manufacturing facilities there and submerging some equipment.

At the other company manufacturing location in Thailand, Navanakorn Industrial Park, the park flood defenses were breached on Monday morning local time and water has begun to flow into the park threatening the company’s facilities there.

All WD employees in Thailand remain safe.

The company’s other facilities in Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S. are fully operational.

The company now expects that the flooding of its Thailand facilities, combined with flood damage to the company’s supply chain in Thailand, will have significant impact on the company’s overall operations and its ability to meet customer demand for its products in the December quarter.

The company will provide further updates on the situation on its investment community conference call on Wednesday, October 19, 2011.

Our comments :

The HDD industry never encounters such a natural disaster in its history. Earthquakes in Japan had a minor effect compared to what’s happening in Thailand.

                                     WD factory
           in Bang Pa-in Industrial Park in September 2008

                     Aerial photo shows flooded factories
               at Bang Pa-in Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya
                            (Source: Bangkok Post)

All HDD manufacturers – but Samsung – and a lot of components’ makers are afffected and it’s also a drama for their hundreds of thousands of employees. 25% of all HDD assembly facilities are located in Thailand.

WD, with both plants about 27 miles North of Bangkok and 37,000 workers, is especially hurted, but also Seagate (significant supply chain disruption), Toshiba (HDD assembly), Hutchinson (suspensions for hard drives), as well as chip manufacturers ON Semiconductor (power transistors for disk head positioners) and Microsemi (converters). And we have no news of Asahi Glass and Hoya in disk media manufacturing, as well as Minebea in motors for HDDs.

For the others:

Furukawa, in disk media, stated: “Four production facilities at the Rojana Industrial Park in Ayutthaya have sustained damage from inundation and have suspended operations.”

At TDK and Magnecomp, “the operation of both the Wangnoi Plant of TDK Thailand Co., Ltd. and the Wangnoi Plant of Magnecomp Precision Technology Public Co., Ltd. are suspended from October 13th for the sake of ensuring safety of the employees although both plants suffered no damage to their facilities or equipment,” and “the Rojana Plant of TDK Thailand Co., Ltd. and the Rojana Plant of Magnecomp Precision Technology Public Co., Ltd. are still unknown, for access to both plants are still not possible. Due to the flood, both plants are inundated and operation is suspended since October 9th.”

Operation of TDK with 1,600 people in Rojana Industrial Park for HDD motors has been suspended since October 7.

For Nidec (HDD motors) in Rojana and Ayutthaya, factories have been partially or totally inundated and people evacuated and/or activity suspended.

Furthermore, transportation and utilities have also been affected in the country.

Obviously, this drama will boost the prices of the disk drives and lead to shortages for PC companies in the next months, as WD is the number one manufacturer in the world in units shipped and producing 60% of its units in Thailand, mainly for PCs. Competitors Seagate, Hitachi GST, Samsung and Toshiba could take advantage of the situation.

In a recent note, Fang Zhang, storage analyst at IHS, wrote: “Thailand, the world’s second largest exporter of HDD behind China, has experienced its worst floods in more than 50 years, potentially leading to a shortage of HDD supplies during the current quarter that may last into the first quarter of 2012. While it is too early to gauge the extent of the impact of the floods, HDD supplies are likely to be constrained throughout the fourth quarter. The current IHS HDD forecast, developed before the disaster, calls for production of 176.2 million hard drives during the fourth quarter, representing 25.9% of annual manufacturing in 2011. IHS likely will downgrade its fourth-quarter production forecast in light of the impact of the disaster.”

He also said that Toshiba was affected:” Western Digital Corp. and Toshiba Corp. have temporarily halted production of HDDs in Thailand, impacting a major portion of global hard drive manufacturing. The companies operate HDD assembly facilities in Pathum Thani province near Bangkok. Toshiba employs about 3,900 workers in Thailand, and approximately 50% of the company’s manufacturing capacity is in the country. In the second quarter, Toshiba was the No. 4-ranked HDD supplier, with 17.8 million units and a 10.6% share.”

The Bangkok Post also wrote that Gartner forecasts that supply disruptions caused by the Thai floods will trim HDD shipments worldwide by at least 10 million units from the previous fourth-quarter target of 180 million. The full-year estimate had been 683 million units.

Will it impact current operations consolidating the industry (WD and Seagate to acquire Hitachi GST and Samsung HDD business respectively)? As there are only five HDD makers, the manufacturing facilities are concentrated in few huge component and assembly plants, about all of them in China, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The consolidation in the industry with only three makers remaining is more risky in case of other disasters like these Thailand floods.

WD’s shares are falling and the company needs to be in good financial health to pay as much as $4.3 billion to get HGST.

Locations of HDD and Components
Manufacturing Facilities in Thailand

Hitachi GST

• Prachinburi (HDD assembly)
• Saha Union (HDD assembly)
• Sarawak (disk media)

Seagate

• Korat (HDD assembly and disk heads)
• Korat (disk heads)

Toshiba

• Navanakorn or Pathum Thani? (HDD assembly)

WD

• Navanakorn (HDD assembly)
• Bang-pa In (HDD assembly and disk heads)

Asahi Glass

• Bangkok (disk media)

Furukawa

• Rojana (disk media)

Hoya

• Changmai (disk media)

TDK

• Rojana (disk media)

Minebea

• Rojana (motors)

Nidec

• Rojana (motors)
• Ayutthaya (motors)

Hutchinson

• Ayutthaya (suspensions)

Magnecomp

• Rojana (suspensions)

Min Aik

• Ayutthaya (HDD components)

Cal-Comp Electronics

• Bangkok (PCBA)

Add these dates to your 2011 ITAD Calendar!

The team at LifeSpan Technology Recycling wishes you a Happy New Year. As you finish up 2010 and look toward 2011, we thought we’d share with you some important dates to have on your ITAD calendar for next year.

Earth Day: April 22^nd
America Recycles Day: November 15^th

These two dates are the perfect opportunity for arranging corporate and community recycling events. This event can be a simple way for employees to safely recycle unwanted IT assets from home or it can be an event designed to raise money for a local charity.. Feel free to contact LifeSpan for information on how to create a successful event anywhere in the US.

Start with a clean slate: January 20^th
Clean out your closets: July 20^th

The beginning and middle of the year is an excellent time to contact the different departments in your organization and encourage them to remove unused IT assets that may be in storage or unused offices. These assets can often be turned into cash and might become a potential data breach if misplaced or stolen.

Trade Shows:

Each year there are any number of trade shows, but we’ve identified three that will help you learn how to maximize your ROI, increase sustainability, and create an efficient ITAD program for your organization. We hope that you will visit us if you attend:

Investment Recovery Seminar & Trade Show (Scottsdale AZ): March 6^th – 9^th
This event “represents an ambitious collection of informative educational sessions specifically directed to those responsible for the professional management of surplus assets and the many suppliers who help make that work possible and more productive.”

For information and registration for the Investment Recovery Seminar click here.

Data Center World (Las Vegas NV): March 27^th – March 31^st

This event is “the leading educational conference for data center professionals.”

For information and registration for Data Center World click here.

International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (Las Vegas NV): October 12^th – 14^th.

This event is the “ITAM industry’s longest running, 9 years now, and ONLY event solely dedicated to the advancement of IT Asset Management and the establishment of global best practice.”

For information and registration for the IAITAM Conference click here.

For assistance scheduling an event please contact LifeSpan at (888) 720-0900 or at info@lifespanrecycling.com.

America Recycles Day Event at Creighton University

In celebration of America Recycles Day, Lifespan along with Creighton University sponsored an electronics recycling event on the campus at Creighton.  We collected over 12,000 pounds of equipment filling two trucks in four hours.  Please let us know if your community could benefit from a similar event.

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LifeSpan’s Denver Team Takes AIM

After last week’s monthly meeting the crew at the Denver warehouse traveled to No Limits Archery for a team building event and engaged in some friendly competition, taking aim at various targets from 10 and 20 yards.

Here are some pictures to enjoy!

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LifeSpan Profile: Rachel Posey

Rachel Posey is our Materials Tracking Manager and works at our Grand Junction, Colorado office.  Ever wonder how we make sure that our certificates come in accurate and on time, Rachel and her team use LifeSpan’s online Environet tracking system to assure that projects keep moving along and that all the materials are tracked from cradle to grave.

Rachel Posey

On Wednesday afternoons, you can also hear Rachel on Grand Junction’s independent radio station KAFM (88.1 in Western Colorado or on the web http://www.kafmradio.org) spinning some fresh and funky tunes.

Q: How would you describe yourself?
A:  Funloving, practical, and caring

Q: Where are 3 places you would like to go on Vacation?
A: Hawaii, Paris, and Bali

Q: What do you like about Colorado?
A: The weather, and the people

Q: What makes you annoyed?
A: Traffic

Q: Who is your favorite music artist?
A: Too many to count – right now, “Sleigh Bells”

Q: If you could be an animal what would you be?
A: Cat