- Dell rose to the top by cutting more corners than its
rivals. The PC giant is cutting another corner by employing prisoners to
handle its new consumer recycling scheme in the US.
-
- Dell is not dirtying its hands directly with either the
PCs or the jail-birds; it is instead obtaining their services through a
US government agency called Unicor, which for some reason is also called
Federal Prison Industries. Or maybe that's just the commercial bit.
-
- (We learned the above from a well-researched CNET article
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-917155.html?tag=fd_top which introduced the
news point about prisoners in paragraph 11. This illustrates one of the
many small differences between British and American journalism.)
-
- Critics say that this has the potential to be little
more than a hi-tech chain gang. Clearly, they haven't visited a PC recycling
facility lately, which are as low-tech as they come.
-
- By employing very cheap labour, Dell can cut corners
on costs, maybe even break even on recycling PCs. The residual value of
second-user PCs have fallen through the floor, the break-up value has fallen
significantly; and the cost of Microsoft software licenses is a serious
impediment to creating a viable - and legal - secondhand market; finally
regulators in Europe and Japan are imposing expensive green policies on
PC manufacturers.
-
- In the US, the big PC brands are taking charge, before
legislators take charge of them: Dell joins IBM, HP and Sony in setting
up consumer recycling schemes, CNET reports. Most impose a fairly nominal
fee for taking back their old, tired boxes. We guess that companies will
juggle with this fee, finding extra discount for new sales.
-
- Dell will take back PCs from any manufacturers through
its Dell Exchange scheme, which launches September, in line with HP and
Best Buy practice. This may swing some green customers their way next time
they choose their new PC.
|