For example, data about hazardous waste and electronics is well accounted for and tracked due to regulations and robust management systems for both. In addition, data differs considerably depending on the waste category.

Today, there is no consistent, high-quality data about the amount of waste, the type and quality, where it is generated and where it goes.

This includes plastic film, primary product packaging and our IT asset packaging in our datacenters.ĭata-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block width: 0px overflow: hidden line-height: 0 ” class=”mce_SELRES_start”> Click here to load media Click here to load media The scale of this problem and its impact on our oceans, waterways and land requires bold action, which is why we are eliminating single-use plastics from our packaging by 2025. And, half of this plastic waste comes from packaging. We expect the Microsoft Circular Centers to increase the reuse of our servers and components by up to 90 percent by 2025.Įliminating single-use plastics in packagingĪpproximately 300 million metric tons of plastic are produced every year, 50 percent of which is used one time. It also reduced the cost of transporting and shipping servers and hardware to processing facilities, which lowered carbon emissions. In Amsterdam, our Microsoft Circular Center pilot reduced downtime at the datacenter and increased the availability of server and network parts for our own reuse and buy-back by our suppliers. Microsoft Circular Centers build on our earlier circular cloud initiatives to extend the lifecycle of our servers and minimize the waste sent to landfills. We will use our learnings about reuse, disassembly, reassembly and recycling with design and supply chain teams to help improve the sustainability of future generations of equipment. We’ll sort the pieces that can be reused and repurposed by us, our customers, or sold. Using machine learning, we will process servers and hardware that are being decommissioned onsite. To reduce this waste, we plan to repurpose and recycle these devices through new Microsoft Circular Centers, which will be located first on our new major datacenter campuses or regions, and eventually added to existing ones. Today, these servers have an average lifespan of five years and contribute to the world’s growing e-waste problem. To meet the growing demand for our cloud services, our datacenter footprint – and the 3 million servers and related hardware that power it – must expand. This work builds on our ongoing waste reduction efforts that started in 2008 which resulted in the zero waste certifications of our Puget Sound Campus and our datacenters in Boydton, Virginia and Dublin, Ireland. And finally, we’ll enlist our own employees to reduce their own waste footprints.īy 2030, we will divert at least 90 percent of the solid waste headed to landfills and incineration from our campuses and datacenters, manufacture 100 percent recyclable Surface devices, use 100 percent recyclable packaging (in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, countries), and achieve, at a minimum, 75 percent diversion of construction and demolition waste for all projects. We will make new investments in Closed Loop Partners’ funds. We’ll also eliminate single-use plastics in our packaging and use technology to improve our waste accounting. We’ll do this by building first-of-their-kind Microsoft Circular Centers to reuse and repurpose servers and hardware in our datacenters. To address our own waste creation, Microsoft will reduce nearly as much waste as we generate while reusing, repurposing or recycling our solid, compost, electronics, construction and demolition, and hazardous wastes. We are setting ambitious goals for each and empowering our customers with the technology and our learnings to do the same. Our zero waste goal is the third sprint in Microsoft’s broad environmental sustainability initiative launched earlier this year focusing on carbon, water, ecosystems and waste. That’s why we’re announcing today our goal to achieve zero waste for Microsoft’s direct operations, products and packaging by 2030. We recognize the urgent need to protect the world’s ecosystems and reduce the carbon emissions that come from the creation, distribution and disposal of waste. A byproduct of our daily lives and every sector of the world’s economies, the trash we discard pollutes our land, clogs our waterways, depletes our natural resources and contaminates the very air we breathe. Every year, more than 11 billion tons of waste are produced worldwide according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

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