Tech Recycling Days

While UMass Boston has less than 3,000 employees, the university’s computer inventory has grown significantly over the years, including many devices that are no longer viable. This was the motivation for establishing Tech Recycling Days—events designed to make it easy for staff and faculty to dispose of outdated computers with minimal effort. 

“When you surplus a computer, you are marking it as removed from the campus inventory and ensuring that the data is removed,” notes John Mazzarella, Assistant Vice Chancellor for IT Client Services. “If it is a computer that can store data, those have restrictions and have to go through the normal surplus process. Anything else—wires, monitors, keyboards, printers and whatnot—they can just go into the trash. They don’t have to go through the same process.” This process has historically involved somebody bringing a device directly to IT, along with a completed form. This was difficult when it came to desktops, which lack the portability of laptops and iPads, and especially in cases where someone wanted to unload multiple devices.  

A shift was made to streamline the labor involved in recycling technology, so as to make things as easy as possible for faculty and staff. No forms are required for Tech Recycling Days, as IT handles that and sets up shop around campus for convenient drop offs in the lobbies of different buildings. “What we wanted to do was to make it easier for people, to make it more likely that people would get rid of their technology in the right way,” Mazzarella says. “Rather than having to fill out the form manually by hand when someone drops things off, we now use a barcode scanner that reads the ID number on the yellow UMass Boston ID tags.” In total, 877 devices have been turned in during Tech Recycling Days events since the program began in Spring 2023, reinforcing UMass Boston’s commitment to sustainability.