EMC partnered up with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and InnoCentive, Inc.  a consultancy that specializes in helping organizations with their crowdsourcing projects, to set up the Eco- Challenge.  An open call was sent out, asking individuals around the world to submit their idea for a solution that could be used to track shipments of electronic waste on a component level.

According to Greenpeace data, 20-50 million tons of electronic products are discarded each year, and a big portion of that is accounted by organizations:  computers, office electronic equipment mobile phones and other equipment all end up in the scrap yard.  Over a three month period, 800 solvers took part of the content and a total of 60 submissions were made, 3 of which were chosen and published this week.

Sumit Bhardwaj, a digital marketer in London, proposes printing a unique 12-digit code on each major subsystem using special passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) ink. The second winning entry specifies the use of an eBee to print codes on individual electronic components, which are to be uploaded to a crowdsourcing platform.

The final submission applies a cataloging system similar to one used in the food industry, to track electronic waste. It involves a sheet of labels printed with unique, encrypted codes that identify parts.

“Proper disposal of e-waste has been an ongoing issue for the IT industry with serious environmental and business impacts, such as public health, waste reduction and data security,” said Namrita Kapur, director of strategy for EDF’s Corporate Partnerships Program. “The solutions discovered through this Eco-Challenge are another example of how we can use proven tools such as crowdsourcing to help unlock innovative ideas that lead to game-changing solutions for problems like e-waste.”

A $10,000 prize will be split among the winners, and EMC will provide them with additional backing to fully realize their solutions.

While IT is propelling public infrastructure, the green data center is also gaining momentum. Cherr Aira had the story about the big vendors’ slow but steady adoption of this trend, as well the perspective of experts that have already gone eco-friendly.