Australia produces 500,000 tonnes of e-waste a year but only about half of it is recycled. There are concerns Microsoft's decision to end support for its Windows 10 operating system later this year, which could affect 240 million computers globally, will worsen the problem.
I wish they had at least named the problem as the TPM 2.0 requirement, and also noted that it’s not really necessary for MS to add that requirement.
It’s probably also too much to expect the ABC to mention that you can just install a Linux on these computers and continue using them. They at least sort of give a nod to that idea when they quote that “The best form of e-waste recycling is actually reuse”.
There’s possibly a silver lining (a very slight one given how depressing the immensity of the unnecessary waste) that Linux users may be able pick up some useful second hand hardware for free if businesses are going to be throwing it out.
Pretty easy work around though for that but I guess you do need some basics down.
But I agree it’s baffling they ‘require’ it.
This…it’s a massive issue because it doesn’t need to exist. This is literally only happening because microsoft want to garden wall the shit out of everything and scrape user data because they wildly overinvested in AI
Computerbank repurpose https://www.computerbank.org.au/