Most organisations treat IT disposal as a logistics problem: a pile of old laptops in a storeroom, a truck, a receipt. It is actually a compliance problem wearing a logistics costume. Once that equipment leaves your loading dock, you are still accountable for the data on it and, in Victoria, for where the material ends up.
The good news is that you can tell a great deal about an ITAD provider from a handful of questions. Here is what to ask before anything leaves your building.
In Victoria, most business e-waste is pre-classified as priority waste under Schedule 5 of the Environment Protection Regulations 2021. Under the Environment Protection Act 2017, duties attach to the generator, the transporter and the receiver. That means your obligation does not stop at the gate.
Anyone reprocessing e-waste needs an EPA permission: an A02b licence for more than 500 tonnes a year, or an A02c registration at or below that threshold. Ask to see it. A provider who cannot produce one on request is a provider who may be passing your equipment to someone else.
The current Australian standard for collecting, storing, transporting and treating end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment is AS 5377:2022. Older documentation may still reference the 2013 version, so check the date.
Certification is not a logo on a website. Ask which certifying body issued it, when it was last audited, and whether the scope covers the specific site your equipment will go to. A company can hold a certification for one facility and send your gear to another.
This is the question most buyers ask last and should ask first. You want three things in the answer:
Under Australian Privacy Principle 11.2, if you no longer need personal information for a permitted purpose you must take reasonable steps to destroy it or de-identify it. The OAIC is explicit that where you instruct a third party to destroy information, reasonable steps include verifying that it actually happened. The certificate is not paperwork for its own sake — it is your evidence.
Ask for the downstream. A straightforward provider can tell you which processor receives the plastics, which receives the circuit boards, and whether anything is exported. If the answer is vague, assume brokerage.
This matters commercially as well as environmentally. Every extra party in the chain is another set of hands on devices that may still hold data.
Establish the moment responsibility passes from you to them, and get it in writing. Then ask the practical questions: Are the vehicles dedicated or shared? Are the crews employees or subcontractors? Is the load sealed? Is it tracked?
If your equipment is sensitive enough, ask whether they can erase or destroy on site before it moves at all.
At minimum you should expect an asset register of what was collected, a Certificate of Destruction for data-bearing devices, and a downstream or recovery report showing what was recycled and what was resold. If you are reporting against sustainability targets, that last document is the one your finance team will want.
Plenty of retired IT still has resale value, particularly equipment that is three to five years old and came off a lease. A provider who only talks about disposal cost may be quietly keeping that value.
Ask how remarketing works, how the device is valued, what share comes back to you and when. Then ask what happens to the devices that cannot be resold — because the answer should still be responsible recycling, not landfill.
Decommissioning a server room is not the same task as collecting forty laptops. Ask whether they can do the audit, the de-racking, the transport, the erasure and the recycling, or whether they will subcontract parts of it. Every handoff is a risk and a cost.
Copy this into your next procurement conversation:
If a provider answers all eight without hesitating, you are probably in safe hands. If they bristle at the EPA question or cannot name a downstream, keep looking.
ReSource runs ITAD services from our Melbourne facilities, with AS/NZS 5377 certified recycling, NIST 800-88 data erasure and a Certificate of Destruction for every job. If you want to put the eight questions to us, get in touch.
