this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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I have been working in data centers for decades. You have no idea the amount of waste there is. We fill up roll away dumpsters w/ boxes/packing materials when a new customer comes in.
They do an upgrade, ever server/switch/router etc ends up in the dumpster. Even if they are perfectly good and it isn't worth shipping back or they have devalued to zero so they cannot be sold for tax purposes. Oh and another round of boxes/packing materials in the dumpster.
Some customers demand proof we destroy their servers (not drives). So we record one of us on a fork truck running over hundreds of servers. That part is kinda fun.
Areas uninsulated w/ AC blasting. Machines running that are idle as backup to the backup.
On paper we recycle them, but most of the time they end up in a landfill.
Well that's just stupid. In my country, if you sell property that's been depreciated to zero (or lower than its sale price in general), you're just supposed to record it as profit.
Of course when you've depreciated something to zero and it's not something like a car where it's registered with the government, you could just give it away to employees or friends.
The problem is, few employees or friends will want an enterprise grade server screaming in their house.
The waste described above makes me sad. Surely parts of servers can be recycled.
Another good point, I swear they get louder and louder... The last batch of new servers sounded like a 777 on takeoff.