Blancco executive urges boost in data erasure

Pegging his comments to the Brussels-based Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum’s International E-Waste Day on Oct. 14, 2024, an executive with Austin, Texas-based Blancco says company decision makers should adopt a strategy “minimizing physical destruction of IT assets for data security purposes.”

Fredrik Forslund, vice president and general manager of the international market for Blancco, says, “This International E-Waste Day, we hope to see more IT stakeholders adopt new data sanitization standards and technologies that improve security while also focusing on better reuse of functioning IT assets and recycling of materials.”

Citing a 2022 United Nations study, Forslund says the generation of obsolete electronics is expected to rise to 82 million tons annually by 2030. Since 2010, he says, “The amount of e-waste is growing five times faster than formal recycling collection rates.”

Services Blancco offers tie into part of the WEEE Forum’s theme for this year’s International E-Waste Day, Forslund says, which is “Join the e-waste hunt—retrieve, recycle and revive!”

“With this year’s theme of decluttering, we urge enterprise IT and security decision-makers to rise to the challenge of prioritizing strategies that make a lasting impact from an environmental standpoint," he says. "One such strategy is minimizing physical destruction of IT assets for data security purposes.”

The Blancco executive adds, “In the age of software-based, certifiable data erasure, data security should not be the reason for dumping e-waste in landfills. We hope to see more C-suite executives investing in meeting environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) goals and increasing transparency to demonstrate the impact that the entire company is making together.”