The Buy Recycled Business Alliance (BRBA) have launched a free recycled products directory to help consumers and businesses alike select environmentally friendly solutions, including computing equipment.

Key sponsors of the non-profit initiative include Fuji Xerox, Visy Industries and McDonalds and it is these companies that comprise the organisations' board.  In 2003 the BRBA developed a three year plan focussing on educating businesses on developing sustainability programs, the creation of an online database for recycled products and working with organisations to appropriately package and label products.

The initiative launched in late April 2008, and currently has over 400 recycled products listed, across ICT, office and business supplies, waste management and recycling and building and construction.

The database itself is fairly simple to use, however at this stage the ICT listings are limited to printing cartridges from Xerox and EXP.  Thumbs up though for the identification of environment specific information such as country of manufacture (which effects the overall product lifecycle environmental impact), how much material is reused, the % of remanufacturer material and how much pre & post consumer recycled content.

The individual product detail also outlines specifications such as whether the recycling can only be completed by specialists and the types of materials used (e.g. plastic type 2).

References:

BRBA 2008, http://www.brba.com.au