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For many years, issues related to environmental preservation have been close to DISKUS Polska, a manufacturer of innovative devices for data removal and media destruction. DISKUS also provides services implying non-destruction of the devices, which are then sent for disposal. By participating in the process of developing technologies for the recovery of rare earth elements from electronic data carriers, they have a unique opportunity to support the idea of a circular economy in which all waste material is reused.

DISKUS Polska main task within this project includes supplying ferrous fractions of shredded HDDs and contribute to the development of a process to separate Nd-based material from shredded components.

• What are your ambitions in contributing to stimulate a more sustainable Europe raw material value chain?

It is an honor for our company to participate in the REEPRODUCE project. We are a very ambitious company that wants to have a real impact not only on the development of modern IT solutions, but also on technologies related to environmental protection. Developing the first European rare earth recovery system is a challenge for Europe. We believe that industry and science (of which we represent) will be able to achieve this goal while maintaining environmental protection through environmentally and socially sustainable technologies.

• What are the main challenges you are facing today when dismantling (HDDs)?

The biggest problem with the services and further sorting of fractions of HDDs is due to the shredding of the complete device. Although we develop and offer media shredders, this way of destruction reduces drastically the chance to regain most of the materials from HDDs. Of course, there are professional sorting lines that can be used but it is not convenient to regain the rare earth elements. That means our challenge is to rebuild the customer’s approach and the way of thinking about data security to achieve the best possible level of “green data destruction”.

• What is the state-of-the-art process of DISKUS?

Years of experience in data media destruction (hardware and services) lead us directly to the conclusion stated above – physical media destruction (shredding) is not necessary for magnetic media, and in direct way it’s the result of old standards for paper that is easy to recycle.  Data destruction performed by state-of-the-art degaussers is fully covering the market needs and security demands. Our mission now is to promote degaussing (magnetic media types) and deflashing (flash media) as the ultimate secured solution to sanitize the data. That means carriers themself are ready to be fully dismantle so up to 98% of the materials can be recycled. The idea is in line with the goal of the project.

• As leader in manufacturing HDDs shredders, what is your interest main in REEPRODUCE project and how it will impact your business? 

As the world’s leading manufacturer of devices for removing data (degaussers, deflasher) and destroying data carriers (shredders) we want to effectively disseminate knowledge about the need to remove redundant data in an environmentally friendly manner. The developed technology will be used in the development of new devices used in combination with our degaussers for destroying hard drives, which DISKUS Polska may sell all over the world.

Shredded HDDs (©FAU)