Recyclable Storage

I've just had the details through of our new recycling "rules" at home. I now have *four* bins; one for bottles, one for green/garden waste, one for recyclables (plastic bottles, paper, etc) and one for remaining rubbish. Theoretically you'd think that there would be almost nothing in the main bin, but surprisingly, lots of plastic items aren't recyclable, like yogurt pots and food trays. I don't know a great deal about plastics, but you would think that we would be using recyclable plastics wherever possible, especially for disposable items.

That got me thinking about recyclable storage. There's been a lot of discussion about green storage from a power/cooling perspective but how about the recycling of equipment when it reaches the end of "useful" life?

Now, I know that most vendors will recycle components, especially in order to keep older systems running where customers choose not to replace or upgrade, but for some vendors (Netapp seems to be one), there's an aim to keep older hardware off the market (check out ZeroWait for example). What happens to that kit? Is it reused? What happens to old hard drives? Do they get recycled? It would be useful to see how vendors are reducing the amount of natural resources they consume when manufacturing products.

By the way, the WEEE directive in the EU is worth looking into. Is something like this happening in the US?