[ZeroSolstice]

This is common compliance nomenclature. The only people paying the high cost to have a full sized piece of equipment destroyed are governments or R&D companies with unique prototypes.

The hard drives are most likely being shredded since that is a common practice and certification feature offered by most disposal companies.

The servers are being "destroyed" because thats how they will be accounted for in inventory and tax purposes to account for full depreciation. The company isn't "selling" the servers to the disposal company so they are marked as "destroyed."

Unless specified in the contract the disposal company will sell the chassis without the drives to a reseller or if they are being paid to dispose of the system, they will separate the components and recycle the metal.

The same goes for the power and network cables, they will go off to a recycler, its how disposal companies off-set their pricing.

[guilhas]

Remember 10 years ago at big company, the external audit company required picture evidence that the electronic equipment was being destroyed. We requested it to the disposal company, and they sent us pictures of a guy with a hammer smashing a motherboard

The whole situation so ridiculous and bureaucratic

[abrookewood]

OK that's much more reasonable. Hoping you are correct.

[kingnothing]

This is correct. Once upon a time, I worked for a company doing this type of disposal. They had 18 wheelers full of equipment show up a couple of times per week. Drives were pulled and put in a pile to be shredded. Everything else was tested and either restored to working order and sold in bulk to organizations in need of cheaper computers, parted out on eBay, or scrapped.