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IT asset disposal and decommissioning
The hardware you take out is still your liability until someone can prove otherwise. We remove it, hold the chain of custody, reconcile it against your asset register, and route it to a certified recycler who issues the destruction certificates.
A migration finishes and everyone looks at the new room. The old one is still full: drives with production data on them, switches holding live configuration and credentials, a UPS with a pallet of lead-acid batteries, and forty assets that finance is still depreciating and insuring.
Getting that equipment out of the building is the easy part, and it is the part most decommission quotes are actually pricing. The hard part is being able to say, two years later when someone asks, exactly which drive went where and who destroyed it. That answer either exists as a serial-number-level record or it does not, and it cannot be reconstructed afterwards.
So we treat disposal as a records job that happens to involve a truck, rather than a removal job that happens to generate some paperwork.
Who carries what
Disposal involves two parties doing different things. Knowing which is which is the difference between a certificate that protects you and one that does not.
What we do
The custody, the records and the accountability for the whole job.
- Audit and classify every asset before anything is unplugged
- Serialised removal, with drives and configuration-bearing devices logged individually
- Sealed, recorded chain of custody from the rack to the recycler
- Dangerous goods separated, packed and consigned correctly
- Asset register reconciled, so finance stops carrying equipment that has gone
- One accountable contract covering removal, transport, disposal and documentation
What the recycler does
We do not perform data destruction ourselves and will not tell you we do.
- Data sanitisation or physical destruction of drives and media
- Certificates of destruction issued against serial numbers
- Material recovery and licensed disposal of what cannot be recovered
- Handling of batteries and other hazardous streams under their licence
- Named to you before the work starts, not after
- Certificates passed straight through to you, matched to our removal record
Six ways a decommission comes back to bite
01
Drives leave without being recorded
A collection docket says twelve pallets. Two years later somebody asks about one specific drive, and there is no record tying it to anything. The certificate you hold does not answer the question that was asked.
02
Configuration walks out on the network gear
Switches and firewalls hold credentials, VPN configuration and a map of your network. Wiping drives and ignoring the network equipment is the most common version of this mistake.
03
The asset register is never corrected
Equipment that physically left the building keeps being depreciated, insured and covered by a support contract. It is a quiet cost that runs for years and nobody goes looking for it.
04
Leased equipment gets scrapped
Financed or leased hardware that goes to a recycler instead of back to the lessor turns into a buyout charge at full value. The asset looks identical to the one next to it in the rack; only the paperwork knows.
05
Batteries go out as general waste
UPS lead-acid and lithium packs are dangerous goods. Consigned wrongly they are a transport and disposal breach, and the exposure sits with the party that generated the waste.
06
Everything is treated as scrap
Working equipment with real residual value goes out at recycling rates because nobody separated it on the way. That value only exists at the moment of removal, and it does not come back.
How it runs
Audit
Every asset in scope identified, serialised and photographed in place, and checked against your register before anything is disconnected. Discrepancies get raised here rather than discovered later.
Classify
Each asset routed: returned to a lessor, retained for redeployment, offered for resale, or sent for destruction. Data-bearing devices flagged separately, including the network equipment people forget.
Remove
Powered down in sequence, disconnected, de-racked and packed, with dangerous goods separated as they come out rather than sorted at the other end.
Chain of custody
Sealed and recorded from the rack to the vehicle to the recycler, with each handover signed. This is the part that makes the certificate mean something.
Transport
Consigned correctly for what is on the truck, with hazardous streams documented to their own requirements.
Destruction
Performed by the certified recycler, against the serial numbers we recorded, with certificates issued at that level rather than by consignment.
Reconcile
Certificates matched back to the removal record, exceptions chased and closed, and your asset register updated so it reflects the building as it now is.
Make good
Containment, power and cabling stripped or made safe, and the room left in the condition your lease or your landlord requires.
When you do not need us
If it is a dozen laptops, call a recycler directly. They will collect, they will issue a certificate, and putting us in the middle adds cost without adding much.
If your lease company runs its own returns process with its own audit trail, use it. Duplicating that with a second chain of custody helps nobody.
This is worth buying when the equipment is data-bearing and the certificate has to survive an audit, when leased and owned hardware are mixed in the same racks, when there are batteries or other hazardous streams involved, or when the room has to be handed back to a landlord in a defined condition.
Common questions
What does ITAD stand for?
IT asset disposition: what happens to hardware once it comes out of service. It covers the whole path, not just the skip at the end. Deciding what is returned, resold, redeployed or destroyed, getting the data off it, proving the data is gone, and correcting the asset register so finance stops paying for equipment that no longer exists.
Do you destroy the data yourselves?
No. We remove the equipment, hold the chain of custody and reconcile it, and a certified recycler performs the data destruction and issues the certificates. We pass those certificates back to you against the serial numbers we recorded on removal. We say this plainly because a certificate is only worth anything if you know who actually issued it.
What proof do we get that the data is gone?
A certificate of destruction from the recycler, tied to specific serial numbers rather than to a pallet or a collection date. That is the distinction that matters in an audit: a certificate that says a consignment was destroyed does not tell you the drive you are being asked about was in it.
What happens to equipment that is still worth something?
It gets identified before it goes anywhere, because residual value disappears the moment a working switch is treated as scrap. We classify each asset on removal and tell you what is worth reselling or redeploying, what is leased and has to go back, and what is genuinely at end of life.
Can you handle UPS batteries and other hazardous items?
Lead-acid and lithium batteries are dangerous goods and cannot travel or be disposed of as general waste. They are separated on removal, packed and consigned accordingly, and routed to a recycler licensed for them. It is one of the more common ways a decommission quietly becomes a compliance breach.
We are moving rooms rather than closing one. Is this the same job?
Partly. A migration leaves behind whatever does not move, and that residue is a disposal job with the same register, custody and certificate requirements. It usually sits inside the decommission and make-good stage of the move rather than being bought separately, and it is covered on our data centre migration page.
Got a room to clear?
Tell us what is in it and what the lease says. We will audit it, tell you what is worth keeping, and price the rest.
Talk to us about a decommission