Is concrete encased ‘harddrive’ green?

Permalink: Is concrete encased ‘harddrive’ green?

A competition, run in conjunction with this month’s Greener Gadgets Conference in New York, attracted some forward thinking design ideas for cleaner technology.

One of the quirkier entries was the harddrive, a USB flash drive encased in concrete.

The concrete is supposed to stop the toxic metals in the hard drive leeching out when the drive is eventually thrown away and probably finds it way into landfill.

No details seem to be available on how much the drive weighs, but you probably wouldn’t want it clunking around in your pocket for too long.

The choice of material also seems bizarre from an environmental point of view, as cement and concrete production is well documented as being a major contributor to CO2 emissions.

Instead of wrapping the drive up in concrete, wouldn’t it have been simpler to stick a label on suggesting ways that it could be recycled?

Inveneo, which provides ICT equipment to remote and rural communities in the developing world, runs a ‘Thumb Drive Drive’.

The non-profit organisation redistributes donated drives to teachers,
students and relief camp workers.

Seems to me though that the harddrive’s designer might have had tongue firmly in cheek when coming up with the design, and it has probably achieved its objective in getting people to talk about sensible ways to dispose of used IT gadgets.