At the Casinos Austria and Austrian Lotteries Group, we don’t simply throw away old PCs or used toner cartridges. Our old appliances and equipment are recycled – in various ways.
Environmental protection and help for Austrian Children’s Cancer Aid
Printers are part of the basic equipment at our workplaces. Although we try to print as much as we can double-sided, in black and white and only when absolutely necessary, we still need large quantities of toner for our printers. At our headquarters alone, we have 25 shared printers in use.
Toner cartridges are particularly damaging to the environment and are classed as hazardous waste. We naturally collect and dispose of any hazardous or special waste materials separately as a matter of course. But a responsible organization regularly reviews and improves such processes.
A few years ago, we decided to go a step further and ‘donate’ our used toner cartridges to the Austrian Children’s Cancer Aid Association’s recycling project. In this way, they generate valuable funds to help children with cancer.
Our old PCs are also given a second life
Our internal security guidelines and various software upgrades necessitate the occasional replacement of our IT hardware equipment. But our old PCs are not simply disposed of, they are given a second life.
Since 2012, we have been donating our old PCs to AfB, Europe's first non-profit IT company and creator of many jobs for people with disabilities.
AfB specializes in taking over decommissioned IT hardware from large corporations and public institutions. It then refurbishes this hardware, deletes any data on the devices in a certified manner and sells the hardware at its store or through its online shops. All refurbished PCs sold by AfB come with a minimum guarantee of one year. A barrier-free workplace allows people with disabilities – who make up over half the workforce at AfB – to obtain qualified jobs.
In 2017, over 100 decommissioned PCs from our group found new homes in this way. Through the PCs we donated from 2012 to 2016, we have sponsored a job at AfB for a person with disabilities and have also contributed to reducing our energy and resource consumption as well as our CO2 emissions.